


something wicked

by bluebot



Series: vamp 'verse [1]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: A bit of sex, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Blood Drinking, Denial of Feelings, Enemies to Lovers, Exhibitionism, M/M, POV switch, Slow Burn, a bit of fun, a bit of slaying, they switch by the way, vampire hyuck, vampire slayer mark
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-12
Updated: 2020-01-14
Packaged: 2021-02-07 14:17:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 67,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21459430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluebot/pseuds/bluebot
Summary: “No.”Donghyuck’s voice was calm, but there was a hint of satisfaction beneath the surface. Mark whipped his head to the side to glare at him. He wasenjoyingthis. Donghyuck smiled, a flash of his sharp fangs visible in the flickering candlelight.“Hands off your collar, pet. Don’t misbehave.”When Mark first got into vampire slaying, he never would have guessed it’d take him here: playing the human ‘pet’ to a vampire hellbent on seeking revenge for the death of his past love.[title/summary change: 11/01/2020]
Relationships: Lee Donghyuck | Haechan/Mark Lee
Series: vamp 'verse [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1519172
Comments: 190
Kudos: 1183





	1. best laid plans

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the first part - now in this fic !

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here’s a bit of added context: this first chapter is the story of donghyuck and mark’s third meeting. the first time they saw each other, they flirted over drinks in a bar. the second time, they tried to kill each other (it was a mutual thing). in this chapter, they’re setting aside their differences for the greater good (slaying vampires). now you’re up to date!
> 
> (also this was partially inspired by the webtoon blood bank!!)

Clubs for vampires were bizarre. 

They were dark spaces, devoid of any form of electric light. Candles flickered lowly in sconces set into the walls and in chandeliers sparsely scattered across the low ceiling. There were small groups of people scattered about in areas set into the ground, sunken areas that, when Mark leaned over, he could spy were filled with couches and side tables and not much else. 

No one was dancing. The only music Mark could hear was a single solitary piano, courtesy of a pianist in the far corner of the club. The pianist was crouched over his piano, the chandelier above was hanging low, nearly scraping its glossy black surface.

It wasn’t as though Mark had been in many clubs for humans. He hadn’t the time, between working in Johnny’s garage during daytime and staking out vampire haunts at night. But he figured this club was exceptional, given its clientele.

He still wasn’t convinced he had to wear the collar Donghyuck had given him, though. 

Even as he was reminded of it, his hand rose to tug at it, to pry the leather off from his skin. He could breathe, of course, but it pressed fast to the back of his neck, flush against the goosebumps that raised as they walked past the lowered alcoves and the sound of whispered conversations and what might have been hushed moans crept into Mark’s ears. Mark knew from Donghyuck that there would be people like him in the alcoves, humans brought by the vampires. 

The humans were called pets, and they were evening entertainment and nourishment in one. 

Mark grimaced upon placing the hushed sounds. He begged his cheeks not to flush, and tugged futilely at the collar that was fastened around his neck.

“No.”

Donghyuck’s voice was calm, but there was a hint of satisfaction beneath the surface. Mark whipped his head to the side to glare at him. He was enjoying this. Donghyuck smiled, a flash of his sharp fangs visible in the flickering candlelight.

“Hands off your collar, pet. Don’t misbehave.”

Mark’s hopes of not flushing were dashed in an instant. Heat flooded his cheeks at Donghyuck’s words.

“No one’s watching us. You don’t have to call me… that.”

Donghyuck’s smile widened to a grin.

“But we might be overheard. Vampires have exceptional hearing, pet. Or did you forget?”

“No. I know,” Mark retorted, sour, but he drew his hand from the collar all the same. 

Donghyuck gave him one last satisfied grin, before drawing ahead of him. Mark glared at the back of his head, as if his eyes could channel the power of the sun far off in the distance, and he could turn Donghyuck to ashes from sheer force of will alone.

“Dickhead,” he muttered, once Donghyuck had walked ahead a couple paces. 

He gleaned some small satisfaction from the way Donghyuck paused in his steps. Donghyuck seemed to force himself to continue walking without turning around and hissing something else at Mark, though. Mark followed him, his mind already straying to the daunting task ahead of them.

Vampires came in all shapes and sizes. Donghyuck, with his golden skin and honey hued hair and warm eyes, was far from the monstrous end of the spectrum. He was deceptively human in appearance. The vampire that Donghyuck had witnessed Mark slay the first night they met, with his sallow skin and thinned out hair, cracked lips and teeth stained dark with blood, was on the opposite end. 

The vampire sitting on the couch across from them couldn’t even be on the scale. Mark kept his head bowed, and tried not to stare at him. His eyes flicked up, and his breath caught in his throat as his gaze met the vampire’s. He was being surveyed, as absently as it was, Mark felt a prickle travel down his skin, a chill crawl down his spine, as the vampire’s eyes flicked over him.

Doyoung, that was the vampire’s name. Doyoung’s eyes were dark as pools of ink, and his skin a hue of cream devoid of any hint of warmth. His black hair fell in long curtains, grazing his sharp cheekbones. He was stunning, but he looked as though he was on the verge of catching cold, his skin so stark in contrast to his dark ensemble.

Mark quickly directed his gaze down upon realizing he’d been staring. He was even more annoyed to realize that sometime between when he’d looked up and glanced back down, Donghyuck had begun to speak, and he hadn’t even heard or realized it until he’d broken eye contact with the vampire Doyoung. 

“...keeping up with the advancements you’ve made in blood extraction and preservation. You must be recruiting humans to help with the tech side of things. Their computers and electronics…”

“ – Confusing, right? Not humans, of course. Can you imagine me working alongside humans? I do consult the recently turned, though.” 

Mark determinedly kept his eyes from shooting up again as Doyoung spoke. He sensed the vampire had turned his gaze from him at last, but he wasn’t going to take his chances.

“But, Donghyuck, my dear, talk of business bores me. I wanted to know what you’ve been up to… and why you’re here, now.”

Mark raised his head to glance at Donghyuck. Donghyuck didn’t give anything away, not from what Mark could tell. His face didn’t change. He lifted his glass of red wine to his lips, took a sip, then lowered it, the picture of nonchalance.

“Doyoung, what do you think of my pet?”

Mark stilled, his chest constricting. He cursed Donghyuck out internally as he felt Doyoung’s gaze pivot back to him. 

He felt distinctly aware of the person sitting on Doyoung’s side, a human, like him in that aspect alone. A man, who looked to be about Mark’s age, twenty. His features were soft, though. Delicate and refined, his fingertips long and slender where they rested on his knee. He was beautiful, and was dressed in fine silk that was a shade of creamy white. 

He was a pet and, accordingly, his neck was covered in a collar. His didn’t seem better suited for an animal than a person like Mark’s, though. The man wore a silk ribbon the same pale shade as his shirt. He also hadn’t spoken a word in the minutes Mark and Donghyuck had been sitting there. It was like he was a living ornament. Mark wondered if he was seen the same way, if he looked like an accessory too, with his lips pursed tight and his neck clad in a collar. 

He was still stringing together colorful names for Donghyuck when Doyoung spoke.

“He’s curious.”

Mark glanced up again, perturbed at the description. He saw a corner of Doyoung’s mouth twitch in amusement, and realized his annoyance was apparent. He hadn’t time to devolve into panic about what the vampire might do to him, knowing that he understood he’d annoyed Mark.

“Isn’t he?” Donghyuck said, “I just found him, you see. He’s new to this – to us. I wanted to show him what it’s like.”

Mark eyed Doyoung as he reclined against the velvet couch across from Mark and Donghyuck’s own. He slipped his arm from the back of the couch, placing his hand on the nape of his pet’s neck. The man’s eyelids fluttered, and Mark fought back the surge of heated aggravation he felt, as Doyoung laid his thumb against the silk ribbon.

“It’s curious…” Doyoung said, in an undertone, thoughtful.

Donghyuck seemed not to take any mind of it. He continued, but Mark felt the urge to lunge for him and tell him to stop. Goosebumps rose on the back of his neck. Doyoung’s gaze remained assessing, his thumb started to press against the man’s ribbon.

“I wanted to take him to a ball, actually. One of those old fussy affairs, you know the ones.”

Doyoung hummed. Mark glanced at Donghyuck, who gestured with his wine glass, appearing completely unconcerned. Mark wanted to warn him – but for what? Against what? Doyoung wasn’t doing anything to cause his concern. It was just… gut instinct. Something was off.

“I’ll break him in, teach him how we do things, what’s expected of him. And then I was planning on taking him to one of the coven’s events. Sort of a reward, I suppose.”

_ Break him in… _ Mark knew Donghyuck was just acting according to plan. All they had to do was convince the vampire they were friendly, get an invitation to one of their events in one of their bases, and get slaying. That was the plan. Mark reminded himself of that, and clenched his hand into a fist at his side. 

“It’s curious,” Doyoung repeated, in his soft tone, “He’s not your type.”

Mark felt more than saw Donghyuck tense beside him. He relaxed in an instant, but Mark saw a flash in Doyoung’s eyes that told him the damage was done. 

He held his breath, unable to look at Doyoung, unable to look away. If the vampire found them out, unravelled their plan, would they be headed for a fight right then and there? Donghyuck had made Mark leave his stakes in his apartment. He had no way of inflicting harm on vampires. He’d been so stupid to let Donghyuck convince him of that.

“In fact, I remember your last pet well. More than a century ago, wasn’t it?” Doyoung’s voice was pleasant, his thumb continuing its steady back and forth on the man’s silk ribbon, “He was a pretty little thing. Was completely enamored with you too, as I recall.”

Donghyuck sniffed.

“Of course my tastes have changed a little after a hundred and twenty years.”

Mark chanced a glance at him. Undue, he felt a brief prick of something like grudging respect. Donghyuck had handled that with ease, though Mark got the feeling that Doyoung had been trying to provoke him. 

“Pet.” 

Mark was studying Donghyuck’s face, how relaxed his features were, how nonchalant he made himself appear with the lazy list of his body against the couch. 

“Pet,” he heard again, and Donghyuck’s eyes flicked to him. Mark realized with a lick of annoyance that he was being addressed.

Mark turned to Doyoung.

He was grinning. He leaned forward, taking his hand from the man’s neck only to place it on his thigh, sliding it forward as he listed forward himself. His fangs were longer than Donghyuck’s, Mark realized. He set his jaw. 

“Yeah?” he replied, gruff. 

Mark could imagine Donghyuck’s annoyance at his tone of voice. Well, he thought, let him be annoyed for a change.

Doyoung’s grin went wide, crooked. It looked almost wicked.

“If you’ll forgive my impropriety, I’d like to see the extent of your affection towards your master.”

Ah, Mark thought, shit. He had to stop himself from glancing at Donghyuck to confirm that it was as bad as it sounded. 

“Jungwoo,” Doyoung said, in a voice that was unexpectedly soft. 

Mark wondered at first if he was losing his hearing, and then, if he was losing his mind. He let himself glance to Donghyuck, but Donghyuck simply appeared frozen in place. He didn’t glance back at Mark. His eyes were glassy, his gaze distant. 

“Love, how should Donghyuck’s pet prove his feelings for his master?”

“His master should feed on him. He should let his master drink him dry.”

Mark’s blood ran cold. The man in the silk ribbon – Jungwoo, had broken his silence. Mark tried not to gawk at him, while his heart thudded heavy in his chest. 

He wondered for a second time why he’d let Donghyuck convince him to leave his stakes at home. Was this all a trap? Had Donghyuck been planning this all along? 

But Donghyuck looked just as shocked as him, if subtler about it. His lips had thinned, and the wine glass he was holding looked to be at risk of shattering from the strength of his grip on it.

Doyoung chuckled.

“That’s a bit more extreme than I was expecting, but that’s certainly a way to do it. Donghyuck, if you will – .”

“No.”

Donghyuck’s expression had cleared of any shock, hardened. Mark’s heart was still pounding in his chest. His hands were clenched into fists, and he was itching to punch – someone. Jungwoo. Doyoung. Donghyuck. Fucking Donghyuck. Even if this wasn’t some trick on his part, it was his fault, as far as Mark was concerned. He hadn’t warned Mark about any of this when he’d shared his brilliant plan. 

“Pick something else,” Donghyuck continued, “I’m not feeding in front of a crowd just to satisfy your paranoia.”

There was a moment, a tense powderkeg of a span of seconds when Mark wasn’t sure if the night would end in a bloodbath or not, but then, Doyoung cracked a grin, collapsed back against the couch again, and the moment broke.

“We’re hardly a crowd. But fine,” Doyoung turned his grin to Jungwoo, “Something else, love.”

Jungwoo frowned. He looked annoyed that his plans had been foiled. Mark was reeling. He’d thought the vampires’ pets would be natural allies, friendly human faces among all the bloodsuckers, not another enemy to watch out for. 

“They should kiss, then.”

Mark saw Donghyuck go unnaturally still out of the corner of his eye, but he hardly registered it. He could have laughed in relief. Kissing. He could do kissing. 

“Fuck yeah,” he said without thinking. He caught Doyoung blink, caught off-guard for the first time that night, before he turned to Donghyuck.

“I’ll kiss Donghyuck – er. My master,” Mark corrected himself, belated. 

Donghyuck’s lips parted, only to close again. A moment passed without anyone saying anything. When Mark was imagining what he’d have to face in a vampire club, he hadn’t thought he’d have to contend with awkward silences. 

“Is that cool with you... master?” 

Mark thought he saw Donghyuck’s eye twitch, but put it down to the flickering of the candlelight. Donghyuck cleared his throat, then primly set his glass of wine aside. By the time he straightened, his face had shuttered again, become impassable. 

Mark wondered at Donghyuck’s odd reaction. He wondered if he was a prude, or if it was just the thought of kissing Mark in particular that was so distasteful for him. 

“It’s fine, yes.”

“Well, get on with it,” Jungwoo ushered, impatient, haughty.

Mark spared a moment to internally shoot a few choice curses his direction, then directed his full attention to Donghyuck. 

It was easy enough to shift over, to lean in, and to press a kiss to Donghyuck. Glancing contact, a brush of Mark’s lips against the corner of Donghyuck’s mouth, nothing more than a moment in which he gathered nothing more than an impression – his lips were cold, as though he’d spent a stretch of time in wintry weather, but unexpectedly soft – and then Mark drew back again. He hadn’t even seated when Jungwoo spoke out.

“Do you two even know each other?” he asked, his voice amused.

“Jesus,” Mark cursed under his breath. 

Jungwoo wanted a show. Mark could give him one. He didn’t have his stakes, and he didn’t fancy his odds in a fight without them, so a show was his best bet of survival.

Mark slung his leg over Donghyuck’s lap, noting the widening of his eyes, the shock on his face, filing it away, then raising his hand, sliding it along Donghyuck’s jaw, tilting his chin up with his thumb. In a split second, he’d straddled Donghyuck and, in the next, he was kissing him. 

Mark tried not to think about the fact that Donghyuck was a vampire – that he was kissing a disgusting, bloodsucking vampire. He cast back to the night they first met, before the slaying, the revelations, and the scuffle that followed. He imagined things were different, that Donghyuck was just a guy with a pretty face and a prettier smile, smiling at him across the bar. 

It was that man that Mark was kissing. 

Mark kissed Donghyuck slow and deliberate, compartmentalizing the fact that they were being watched, that Donghyuck’s lips were a touch too frigid, that just behind them lay a set of sharp fangs. 

He tilted his head, inhaling deep before pressing in closer, dragging Donghyuck’s lower lip in between his own. He tugged it, as he felt an unexpected sensation, the slide of Donghyuck’s hand (cold, too cold, don’t think about it, don’t think about it) up his thigh. His touch was tentative as it slid over the tensed muscles of Mark’s leg – no. Not tentative. Careful, as though Mark was an animal that might be spooked if he made any movement too sudden. 

Mark released Donghyuck’s lip, paused to take in a breath of air, then pressed back in, darting his tongue out. He didn’t bother teasing Donghyuck, toying with him. Donghyuck hadn’t kissed him back yet, not really, so Mark wasn’t going to do anything fancy on his account. 

He licked into Donghyuck’s mouth, only for twin points of sharp, piercing pain to cause him to still. Donghyuck’s fangs. He’d forgotten he had them, just for a moment there, and he’d gone and cut his tongue on them. 

There was a soft keening sound that didn’t register for Mark as he pulled back, smarting. 

“Ow,” he muttered, and then couldn’t say anything more if he wanted to. 

Donghyuck had surged forward, and recaptured his lips. As Donghyuck moved forward, the tips of his fingers pressed into Mark’s thighs, near painfully hard. He let out a sound, a soft, muffled sort of cry, and Mark was finally able to connect it to the sound from earlier.

“You’re bleeding,” Donghyuck murmured against Mark’s lips. 

He sounded annoyed and betrayed, as though Mark had meant to do it, as though he wasn’t ravishing Mark’s mouth at that moment.

“Your fangs… fucking cut me,” Mark tried to accuse, but his voice sounded more breathless than angry and the effect was ruined. 

A deep exhalation that sounded suspiciously like a moan filtered through Donghyuck’s lips. Mark left his lips parted, let Donghyuck slip his tongue past them. It slid along Mark’s tongue, wet and warm and Mark felt a not-unpleasant chill travel down his spine. Donghyuck tasted of red wine, dry and deep and rich. 

“Excuse me…” someone said. 

Donghyuck let out a frustrated groan. He detached from Mark’s mouth, only to press back in. 

He rested his head in the crook of Mark’s neck, his nose pressed to the juncture of Mark’s jaw and his breath hot and damp on the side of Mark’s neck. He took his hand from Mark’s thigh and Mark almost cursed him, but he found himself choking when he felt Donghyuck’s chilled fingers brush against his neck. Donghyuck’s fingers started to work at the collar buckle that was fastened tight, and Mark, realizing it belatedly, opened his eyes. 

He shoved Donghyuck back, dislodging his fingers from the collar. Donghyuck fell back against the couch, a stunned expression on his face before it quickly turned wry. Mark’s chest rose and fell as he tried to make sense of what had just happened. 

Donghyuck had just tried to take off his collar. Mark hated the thing, but that thin strip of leather was all that lay between his neck and a vampire who’d mentioned his blood only moments before.

Donghyuck raised his hand again and Mark tracked it. He shot his hand up, grasping Donghyuck’s wrist, holding his hand in place only bare inches from the already loosened collar.

“Try doing that again, I dare you,” Mark warned. He was winded, but he tried not to let it show in his voice. If he had to fight Donghyuck – again, this time at an even bigger advantage – he probably wouldn’t win.

“I’m in control here,” Donghyuck replied, tone rough, “Don’t forget, pet.”

Mark didn’t know what Donghyuck was really referring to, if he meant the act they were putting on, or if he was saying something else. He stared at Donghyuck a moment, searching for a sign of insatiable hunger, that animalistic look that vampires got in their eyes right before they fed. He couldn’t see it. He could hardly see anything, though, in that dark club.

Mark sucked in a breath, and dropped his hand from Donghyuck’s wrist. He stilled, not even daring to draw breath, as Donghyuck’s fingers took to the collar buckle.

“Donghyuck,” came a voice, soft, nearly on the verge of laughter. Mark winced, jammed his eyes shut. He’d forgotten about their audience. 

“You convinced me, really. How about you, love? Did they convince you?”

“I suppose they did.”

Donghyuck’s fingers never slowed their work. He finally got the collar off. Mark resisted the urge to curl in on himself, as the cold air hit his bare neck, damp with sweat. He cracked his eyes open and watched Donghyuck, wary. 

Donghyuck set the collar aside and kept one hand on Mark’s neck. He dragged his touch towards himself, skating his fingertips over the surface of Mark’s skin, tickling. He hesitated a moment, his hand stilled in it’s path at the base of Mark’s neck. Mark wondered for a moment why, then grew gradually aware of his pulsebeat, slow and sluggish beneath the tips of Donghyuck’s fingers.

His breath hitched. He watched, transfixed, as Donghyuck’s eyelids fell low. Mark’s lips parted. He intended to ask Donghyuck exactly what he thought he was doing, why he feeling for Mark’s pulse, but just as the words came to his lips, Donghyuck’s hand dropped to the front of Mark’s shirt. Donghyuck tugged him forward and Mark, relieved, followed his pull.

Donghyuck angled in, bypassing Mark’s lips, sliding his hand back up Mark’s thigh. Mark shivered. His eyes fell closed as Donghyuck kissed his neck, an inch or so from the pulse point. Donghyuck’s kiss was hot, open mouthed. Mark heard more than felt himself make a soft, curious sound, as Donghyuck began to lathe at the sensitive skin, flicking his tongue over the surface, and kissing sloppy and hasty. 

Donghyuck hesitated too long on a single spot where Mark realized he could feel his heartbeat in his throat, and Mark raised his hand to grip Donghyuck’s arm tightly: a warning. Donghyuck hummed, a tickling vibration against the skin, but heeded the warning and moved on, trailing open mouthed kisses up the length of Mark’s neck.

Mark didn’t trust Donghyuck. He was a vampire. Vampires operated on deception and trickery. They could never be held to their word. He didn’t trust Donghyuck, but he was still letting him get this close, letting him drag his sharp fangs over the surface of his skin. 

Why? he wondered, lacking the mind to put more of his confusion into words. He shuddered. Donghyuck’s fangs had scraped by a jumping tendon. He exhaled a sharp hiss and arched his neck to allow Donghyuck easier access. 

Just then, someone – Doyoung – cleared his throat. Just then, Donghyuck drew back. 

Mark cracked his eyes open. He caught the sight of Donghyuck’s lips, shining and kiss swollen, before Donghyuck swiped the back of his hand across them. 

His expression was difficult to read. His gaze was dark, his pupils so blown that all that remained was the slightest rim of brown around them. He seemed to hesitate a moment, his gaze on Mark. Then, a corner of his lip ticked downward, and his eyes flicked to the side. He looked beyond Mark, towards Doyoung.

“Thought you wanted us to kiss. Now you want us to stop?”

Mark watched Donghyuck’s lips as he spoke. He was transfixed by how they moved, thinking about how only moments before they had been pressed to the side of his neck. 

Donghyuck had seemed to just flip a switch and snap back into the unaffected mask he’d worn when they first walked into the club. Mark, still trying to catch his breath, his lips still tingling and the skin of his neck still tender and overworked, couldn’t fathom it. 

“I simply don’t want to be here all night,” Doyoung replied, nonplussed. 

Mark almost twisted to look at him, only to realize that he was, in fact, still seated on Donghyuck’s lap. His breath caught in his throat, and he moved to quickly slide off, only to be stopped. 

Donghyuck’s grip tightened to the verge of painful on Mark’s thigh, his eyes flicking over to him. Mark frowned at him, his post-make out haze quickly fading, being overtaken with annoyance at both himself and Donghyuck in turn. Donghyuck, for ordering him around and himself for just letting Donghyuck get away with it. 

A current seemed to travel in the air as their eyes met, and Mark wondered idly if he’d have to shove Donghyuck from him again. But then, the moment passed. Donghyuck released his death grip on Mark’s thigh, his gaze flitted back to Doyoung. Mark was left wondering if he’d imagined it all, the brief possession, assertion, as he slipped unceremoniously off from Donghyuck’s lap and took the seat on the couch beside him. 

Donghyuck listed back, catching the glass of wine from the side table and raising it to his lips. He surveyed Doyoung over it. Whatever was going on now, Mark realized, he and Jungwoo both weren’t part of it. They weren’t privy. The vampires stared at each other, and the humans watched.

“Has your opinion changed on my pet? Or do you still find him curious?”

Doyoung’s eyes flitted to Mark, bored, then swung back to Donghyuck. A small smile worked its way across his mouth. Long strands of hair had fallen in his face, and he pushed them back as he straightened.

“He’s curious, alright. He seems a little… rebellious, but it’s obvious that you two have a strong bond.”

Mark bit the inside of his mouth to keep from breaking out into laughter. Donghyuck just smiled, crooked, a flash of white teeth and sharp fangs. He took a sip from the wine glass. 

“As I said, I’m still breaking him in.”

Doyoung’s gaze passed over to Mark again. He reached out, his hand landing on Jungwoo’s thigh. The touching, the constant points of contact between them, it all seemed to be unconscious on Doyoung’s part. Jungwoo was his, and he acted accordingly. Mark glanced to the side, for a split second, wondering for the first time about Jungwoo’s thoughts about all this. It was possible he was being compelled but, for some reason, given the haughty commentary from earlier, Mark doubted it. 

Jungwoo’s head was ducked, his copper bangs fallen over, casting the top half of his face in shadow. But a smile, small and pleased, was just visible beneath the shadows. Mark forced his gaze from him, back to Doyoung.

Doyoung looked amused by Mark’s momentary distraction.

“You’ve got quite a task there, I think.”

Donghyuck hummed, noncommittal.

“But… maybe seeing how pets are meant to behave will teach him a lesson. I can see why you’re eager to take him to a ball.”

Mark’s ears perked up. A hot lick of shame uncurled in his belly. He’d forgotten all about their mission, the reason why they were there. He held his breath. He didn’t dare move. The fate of their mission rested on the next few seconds. Doyoung stared at him, surveying, for a moment longer, then turned his gaze back to Donghyuck.

“Do you remember where Ten’s mansion is located?”

“How could I forget?” Donghyuck muttered. He, too, seemed to be holding himself more carefully in anticipation.

Doyoung chuckled, light. 

“He’s hosting the next one. It’ll be a week’s time from now, on the night of the new moon. When they ask, you can tell them I invited you.”

“How kind of you to extend us an invitation,” Donghyuck uttered. 

On the surface, he continued to look nonchalant, but Mark sensed that he was feeling the same unexpected surge of accomplishment as Mark was in that moment. He was too wary to allow himself to revel in it, though, still in the thick of the vampire club, surrounded by bloodsuckers. 

“How about it, love? Are you excited to see Donghyuck and his pet again?”

Mark glanced back to the couch across from them. Doyoung had lifted Jungwoo’s head up, by his chin. Jungwoo had a sickening expression on his face, too close to real affection, as he gazed back at his vampire.

“A little. They’re strange,” Jungwoo laughed, soft and light, “They’re won’t fit in at the ball, I think.”

Doyoung smiled back at him with a fondness that made Mark’s stomach churn. 

Jesus, he thought, wondering if these two actually thought they loved each other. How could a person love a vampire? he wondered. How could a person allow himself to feel such things for a thing that’d sooner drink his blood than anything else?

“Oh, yes. No matter what, they’ll be entertaining.”

Donghyuck sighed. He set his glass aside. Doyoung and Jungwoo still hadn’t turned from each other.

“Well, it was… a pleasure seeing you again, Doyoung. Pleasure to meet you, Jungwoo.”

Mark felt a grip of panic start to recede, as he realized Donghyuck was starting to make their exit. Doyoung glanced to the side, his gaze flitting over Donghyuck and Mark, resting a moment longer on Mark.

“You too, Donghyuck… Donghyuck’s pet.”

Mark bristled. Doyoung had already turned his gaze from him, back to Jungwoo, but he couldn’t resist one last parting aside as they stood up and started for the alcove’s stairs.

“I have a name, vampire,” Mark could feel Donghyuck’s gaze turn to him, and hurried to say his words before Donghyuck found some way to silence him, “Mark. If we meet again, you’ll call me Mark. Not pet. Got that?”

“Mark…” Donghyuck’s voice was low in warning. 

His hand gripped Mark’s bicep. Mark glanced down, and paused at the sight of slender fingers wrapped around his tattoo, numbers and letters, a reference to a Bible verse that Mark had gotten only days after his parents’ deaths. Mark narrowed his eyes. 

He recalled the headlines that day, all those years ago – how they had attributed the attack on his parents to a roving pack of wild dogs. Mark had known better. Mark knew as well as anyone that vampires were vicious, bloodthirsty, nothing more than beasts. No vampire deserved an ounce of respect from him. 

Mark shook Donghyuck from his arm, training his gaze back on Doyoung. At last, Doyoung looked to him, actually looked at him. Not just surveying him, but looking into his eyes. Mark suppressed the urge to shiver as Doyoung’s gaze, cool and dark, drilled into him.

“I’ll call you whatever I wish to call you,” Doyoung’s voice contained no trace of the amusement that had underpinned it throughout the night. He turned his cold gaze to Donghyuck, “Control your pet, Donghyuck.”

Mark felt the undercurrent of annoyance he’d felt throughout the night boil over, burning like a bed of burning embers in his chest. He clenched his hand into a fist at his side, his blunt nails digging into his palms. He wasn’t going to be spoken down to by a vampire. He’d rid the world of a dozen of Doyoung’s kind, two in the last month alone. 

He opened his mouth to say just that when he felt the press of cool leather against his skin. He paused as he felt Donghyuck coax his fist open, as he felt him press the collar into his still stinging palm.

“ _ Mark, _ ” he repeated, his voice urgent, finally shifted from nonchalance, “We should be on our way.”

It was his tone of voice that reached Mark, the note of worry in it that caused Mark to finally rip his gaze from Doyoung’s. He looked at Donghyuck, wondering at the wideness of his eyes. 

Mark hesitated. His anger still burned, but it wasn’t white-hot. 

“Please,” Donghyuck said, after a long moment, as though the word pained him to say. Mark turned from Doyoung to face Donghyuck head-on.

“Jesus,” he exhaled, determinedly not thinking about the fact that something had scared Donghyuck. Something in the last few seconds had transpired that left the implacable vampire afraid, “Alright. Fine.”

“Thank god for small victories,” Donghyuck muttered, his face shifting from worry to a more familiar expression of annoyance. 

He continued to dart wary glances Mark’s way as they ascended the stairs, and as they picked their way through the alcoves, piano tinkling in the distance. He didn’t stop shooting distrustful looks Mark’s way until they were a block from the club.

He remained tense and quiet the whole walk away from Doyoung and Jungwoo so, when he showed signs of relaxing, Mark took it upon himself to break the tension.

“So that Doyoung’s a piece of work, huh?”

No sooner had he spoken than he was being forcibly dragged into the mouth of a nearby shadowed alleyway. Features contorted in anger, Donghyuck pinned Mark against one of the alleyway walls. It took Mark moments to get over his surprise, his shock at Donghyuck’s sudden shift.

“Don’t ever do what you did in there again,” Donghyuck hissed, “Do you have a death wish or something? Are you actually insane?”

Finally breaking from his stunned spell, Mark knocked Donghyuck’s hand from his chest and stepped away from the wall, taking a step towards Donghyuck.

“Keep your hands off me, vampire.”

For a moment, Mark thought Donghyuck might explode. He thought he might really be attacked, Donghyuck looked so enraged. He shifted his stance, centering his bodyweight low, ready to be pounced upon, resigning himself.

Then, Donghyuck’s fury seemed to subside. His nostrils flared, but no other sign of his anger made itself known.

“You’re no use to me dead,” he said, gruff. Admitting that he needed Mark, even as no more than a tool, seemed to take the wind out of him, “After you take care of my enemies, you can go around insulting whoever you want. Until then, though, you’ll learn how to play pet.”

Mark blinked, unsure if he still needed to be poised to be on the receiving end of an attack, or if he was in the clear. He mulled over Donghyuck’s words. He didn’t mind being a tool. Their deal would end up with half a dozen more vampires slain. The prospect of playing a vampire’s pet was somehow even harder to stomach than just temporarily teaming up with a vampire, though. 

“And, for the record,” Donghyuck’s eyes flicked down, only going so far as Mark’s neck before swinging back up, “You weren’t complaining about me having my hands on you earlier.”

At his words, Mark felt the phantom press of Donghyuck’s fingertips to his thigh. The ghost of exhalations across his skin.

His cheeks felt suspiciously warm despite the chill of the night air. He scowled. 

“That was acting.”

Donghyuck’s lip curled into a joyless smile. A flash of one of his fangs glinted in the thin sliver of moonlight that penetrated the mouth of the alleyway.

“You were whimpering in my ear. No one’s that good an actor. Certainly not you.”

Mark froze. He cast back, wondering if he really had whimpered when Donghyuck had been kissing him, touching him. The fact that he couldn’t even remember if he had, or if Donghyuck was just making it up was bad enough. 

Donghyuck’s curled lip widened to a crooked grin. He reached out towards Mark. Though his movements were telegraphed, and Mark could have stopped him if he’d tried, he didn’t. Donghyuck nudged Mark’s chin up. 

“Listen to what I say and do as I tell you from now on. You won’t have to worry about any vampire touching you, save for me,” Donghyuck drew back, settling into familiar self-satisfaction that set Mark’s hackles rising, “And you won’t have to worry about me meaning it, either. Unlike you, I can act.”

Donghyuck took a step away, then another. He paused, then looked over his shoulder.

“I’ll come by your place the night of the new moon,” his eyes skated over Mark’s body, and Mark resisted the urge to draw in on himself, feeling overexposed, like the frayed end of a raw nerve all of a sudden.

“I’ll bring clothes for you. Can’t have a pet of mine showing up to a ball in greasy denim,” Donghyuck added, an afterthought, one last annoyance that rocked Mark from his feet and sent him stumbling after Donghyuck as he sauntered away from the alley. 

Mark forced himself to stop. He watched Donghyuck go, his chest heaving, his mind reeling.

“Fucking… vampire,” he spat, long after Donghyuck had disappeared around a corner, “Wouldn’t want your hands on me, anyway.”

And then, having nowhere adequate to release his pent up frustration, he turned, shoved his hands in his pockets, and stalked in the opposite direction. The more distance he put between himself and Donghyuck, the stronger his resolve grew to do anything possible not to let Donghyuck make him into a pet. He’d go to the damn ball, but he wasn’t going to be wearing fucking _ silk _ when he did it.


	2. a little death

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> part two - now in this fic!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is the chapter with the lowkey markhyuckno threesome so... warning for that

“No.”

“What do you mean, ‘no’?” 

Donghyuck’s voice was perfectly calm, but Mark got the sense of a storm building beneath still waters. Still, he’d never been one to bow to intimidation, even when it was probably the wisest course of action. Mark narrowed his eyes, crumpled the shirt up, and pushed it back into Donghyuck’s hands.

“I’m not wearing that. How the fuck is anyone going to take me seriously when I look like… when I’m wearing a…”

Donghyuck arched a perfectly groomed brow. Words were becoming increasingly hard to bring to mind, as Mark’s gaze kept straying back down to the flimsy, gauzy fabric in Donghyuck’s hand.

“I didn’t know you cared so much what vampires thought of you.”

Mark froze. He didn’t. 

“I don’t,” he said, after a beat, getting the uneasy feeling he was playing right into Donghyuck’s hands.

The feeling was confirmed when the corner of Donghyuck’s lip quirked up, revealing a glint of a sharp fang.

“Good,” he said crisply, before pressing the shirt back into Mark’s grip, “Then you’ll have no problem wearing the shirt.”

Mark stood there, comprehension and regret dawning, the telltale slip of soft linen tickling against the calluses on his hands. Donghyuck turned away and started sorting through the bag he’d brought with him to Mark’s apartment. and Mark realized he was giving Mark privacy.

Mark made sure to glare at the back of his head before he pulled off his shirt and started to change. 

A part of him knew that Donghyuck was just trying to make sure he looked the part of vampire’s pet so that they’d draw less attention to themselves when they were at the vampire gathering. The knowledge didn’t soothe the annoyance he felt when he’d drawn the shirt over his head and realized just how low the neckline fell. 

The fact that Donghyuck had gotten him a shirt of linen and not of some even gaudier fabric like silk or velvet was of little comfort, when the shirt Mark was wearing nearly opened up to his navel. If he moved too quick or even breathed the wrong way, the scant fabric would fall open, exposing his whole chest to the world. 

He frowned, and plucked the clingy linen from his skin. He didn’t care about vampires, he reminded himself. Not what they saw, or what they thought about it. 

“It’s fucked up that you get to wear about fifty fucking layers while I’m stuck wearing this shit,” Mark muttered. 

He let go of the shirt and looked up. Donghyuck was staring at him. Mark didn’t know when he’d turned around. He had a curious expression on his face, almost bothered. His gaze was pointed in Mark’s direction and his mouth was set in a thin line.

“Jesus,” Mark bristled, “What did I do wrong this time?”

Donghyuck’s gaze travelled up to Mark’s eyes. His frown deepened.

“Nothing,” he said, and Mark didn’t know what to do with that. His lips parted, as he meant to ask why he was frowning then. 

But then Donghyuck extended his hand. Mark thought for a brief moment he might have just been reaching out for him – he felt his heart thud, only for him to realize a moment later that there was something in Donghyuck’s hand. He was just handing Mark something – a collar. Mark felt a scowl form on his face but he took the collar without protest. 

“Although…” Donghyuck started. His voice sounded different, Mark realized. A touch rougher, maybe. It bothered him that he was getting to know Donghyuck’s voice that well. 

“You’ll have to watch your mouth once we’re around vampires. Pets don’t talk that way.” 

“Well, thank God I’m not a fucking pet,” Mark growled, as he stuffed the collar into his back pocket, “But fine. I’ll try to talk like one of ‘em.” 

He wandered over to the mirror to give himself one last onceover, just missing the way Donghyuck’s eyes followed him, and the troubled look within them.

“No.”

“Oh, come on,” Mark felt a grin grow at the pinched look on Donghyuck’s face. He wondered if the vampire had ever ridden on a motorcycle in all his years.

“I’m not going on that thing.”

“You’ve got me wearing perfume and hair gel. I’ve done everything you asked me to do. I’m just asking for this one thing.”

Donghyuck sighed, short.

“You have a garage full of cars. Why can’t we take one of those?”

“Those don’t belong to me,” Mark strode over to his bench to get an extra helmet for Donghyuck. He didn’t know how well vampire immortality stood up to motorcycle crashes and he wasn’t eager to find out.

“This does,” Mark slung his leg over the seat of the motorcycle and tossed the helmet over to Donghyuck.

Donghyuck caught it, then glanced up to Mark with a look of the last carefully retained vestiges of patience being overtaken by frustration. 

“So murder’s alright with you but you draw the line at borrowing a car?”

Mark weighed his question for a second. Murder was a strong word for ridding the world of filthy vermin vampires, but he supposed it fit, after a fashion. 

“Guess so.” 

Donghyuck’s eye twitched and Mark’s grin grew. He was coming to realize that he liked seeing the vampire out of his element. Donghyuck seemed to adjust to even the most unexpected situations with ease while Mark was left scrambling, speechless. It was nice, Mark thought, to have it reversed for a change. 

“Hop on.”

Donghyuck at last slipped onto the bike behind Mark. He gingerly wrapped his arms around Mark’s waist while keeping seemingly as much space between them as the seat would allow. Mark stiffened at the feel of Donghyuck’s fingers through the thin linen fabric of his borrowed shirt – cold, thin, and delicate. He was reminded of a week prior, of those fingers pressed into his skin. Donghyuck’s thighs bracketed Mark’s own, impossible to ignore points of contact that stretched half the length of Mark’s thigh. 

Mark closed his eyes, exhaled, forcibly relaxing and untensing his muscles. He’d been riding this bike since it had shown up in the shop looking like it was a strong gust of wind away from disintegrating into a pile of scrap metal. It felt as much a home to Mark as anything. He tightened his grip on the handles, taking comfort in their familiarity. He felt comfortable. He felt in control. 

When Donghyuck muttered, “You owe me a flawless performance tonight,” his breath warm on the back of Mark’s neck, Mark was even able to crack a smile.

“Got it, master,” he replied. 

He kicked the motorcycle to life and revved the engine, part of his mind dwelling on how Donghyuck’s fingers seemed to have tightened on his torso before he’d ever started the bike. 

Following the directions Donghyuck had spoken into his ear, Mark drove them to the place where the ball was meant to be. Mark felt a rising sense of unease as they left the heart of the city, driving past the market districts, even past the sprawling suburbs around the city. 

The tops of the tallest skyscrapers were barely visible over the hills behind them when Donghyuck at last whispered a breathless, “We’re nearly there. Pull over. We should walk the rest of the way.”

And, for once, Mark obeyed his command without question. He’d never ventured outside of the city limits once in his years of hunting vampires. He was walking on new ground, completely at a disadvantage, and what little Donghyuck knew more than him was enough to cause Mark to hold his tongue. He parked the bike in a copse of trees just off the road, hidden from anyone or thing that might pass by, and followed Donghyuck’s lead. 

Mark recalled that the vampire they’d met in the club – Doyoung – had said the place they were headed towards was owned by a vampire named Ten. Ten’s place was a mansion, tall and daunting, with glossy spires that spiked up into the dark night sky.

They neared it, and the low level of activity near the entrance became visible. There were sleek, shining modern sports cars and impeccably maintained vintage cars alike drawing up to the entrance, depositing duos and trios. He couldn’t make out much more than silhouettes, dark against the buttery yellow light streaming from the tall doors of the mansion’s entrance, but he would’ve put money on them all being clad in expensive clothes.

Mark whistled lowly. 

Donghyuck ignored Mark. He paused, his gaze fixed on the mansion, his expression hard to read in the dim of the moonless night.

“Better put on the collar now.”

“Oh,” Mark dug into his pockets to get it out. He stared down at the collar, unease growing again, “Right.”

“What – do you need me to do it for you?” Donghyuck sounded irritated at Mark’s hesitation. 

“Fuck off,” he rolled his eyes, but slung the collar around his neck. He fiddled with the buckle. It was hard to cinch it tight and close it without a mirror, but just the thought of actually asking for Donghyuck’s help was enough to heat his cheeks up, so Mark kept his mouth shut and struggled by himself. 

As they ascended the stairs to the mansion’s front porch, the soft sounds of conversation, of bubbling laughter and all the other sounds one might associate with inane, non-vampire infested parties grew audible, permeating the dark night. Before they stepped inside, Donghyuck drew Mark aside. Mark stood stock still as Donghyuck gave him another once over. 

Donghyuck reached out, frown on his features. Mark froze as Donghyuck’s fingers alighted on the collar. He forget to breathe for a moment as Donghyuck tugged it in place with a disturbing amount of care. He forced himself to take a breath as Donghyuck stepped back, and nodded once.

“Good.” 

Donghyuck turned from Mark and Mark could only watch him, wondering if he’d heard correctly.

_ “Good?” _

Mark strode forward, taking care to lower his voice, soften it as they walked to the doors. Donghyuck rapped lightly on the door with one knuckle, and gave Mark an inscrutable look.

“Yes,” he said, “You look like you could belong to me.” 

Then, he turned to the vampire who’d opened the door, leaving Mark feeling distinctly like he’d just missed a step on the stairs. 

“Doyoung said I was welcome here,” Donghyuck said, directed at the vampire. 

The vampire’s eyes passed over Mark behind Donghyuck, but swung right back to Donghyuck. Mark lowered his head to hide his expression in shadows. Back to living ornamentation, he thought. Back to being a pet.

The vampire nodded, and Mark’s heart thudded.

“Come on in, then.”

The air was thick and heavy, clouded with incense. Clusters of humans and vampires stood around tall columns in the entrance hall, or lazed in lounge chairs in the living areas beyond. Mark found it hard to keep his head bowed, found it hard not to gaze at all the sheer excess in the ball. 

The vampires wore clothes that made Mark almost wish he knew more about fashion – aged styles with flouncy necklines seemed to be just as common as sleek, sparse modern styles. All of them retained a sort of control, a sort of decency even when their outfits were more revealing than Mark’s own. As he walked, and took in the array of vampires, Mark’s eyes slid back to Donghyuck. 

Donghyuck had dressed up, he’d thought, especially when compared to the previous times they’d met. He had an aura of intentional disarray about his outfit, though. Mismatched gold necklaces glinted around his neck as he walked, and the gold rings stacked on his fingers shone brightly as he gestured Mark in a certain direction. He was wearing linen, the same as Mark, though his was a deep, dark burgundy where Mark’s was bone white. 

Most of the other vampires had their pets dressed distinctly from them. The figures, clad in clingy, light fabric that closely resembled Mark’s own clothes, were always in the vicinity of their vampire, their master. Mark noted that for later. 

Donghyuck’s plan for the night involved information gathering. They would split up, Donghyuck to secure invitations to future balls and ingratiate himself with the powerful vampires, to convince them of his loyalty, Mark doing the dirty work of needling information from pets on their masters. He was to find out where they lived, their schedules, their weaknesses, “Anything that might slip from their pets’ tongues”, according to Donghyuck.

At first, Mark had been annoyed when Donghyuck told him there wouldn’t be any slaying that night, the night of the first ball. He’d pitched a (tiny, miniscule) fit. He’d come around to see Donghyuck’s reasoning though. 

As they walked through the mansion to Donghyuck’s mysterious destination, Mark was able to gather the sheer numbers of vampires there, not even factoring their pets. Mark had the uneasy feeling he wouldn’t be able to count on the pets’ help at all, with how endeared most of them seemed to be towards their masters. There were so many of them. This wasn’t something he could punch his way out of. He couldn’t use brute force, or the sheer might of years of stockpiled anger and resentment. 

He had to do it Donghyuck’s way – the vampire way. Slick and slimy, gathering information like spies so they could pick the vampires off one by one and leave the greater number of them none the wiser as to the slayer among them. 

It was sickening, it went against the very fiber of his being. But it made sense.

“Ten!” Donghyuck proclaimed, the only indication for Mark that he’d found what – who he was searching for. His face shifted, a beaming, bright smile alighting upon his features. It took Mark longer than he would have liked to look away, directing his gaze towards where Donghyuck’s grin was pointed. 

“Donghyuck, darling!” 

Another wicked flash of fangs, an answering grin, as a vampire with drew up to them. The vampire had dark hair, and was wearing a cheetah print shirt tucked into jeans so tight they could have been poured onto him. Mark blinked at Ten, at his appearance. He looked like a rock star, a celebrity, out of place among the surroundings. The only giveaway that he was inhuman were the telltale fangs in his grin as he beamed back at Donghyuck.

“You’re quite brave to show your face here.”

Mark’s eyes slid over to Donghyuck, wary, wondering if they were already headed for trouble. Donghyuck only laughed, though. His own grin turned crooked.

“I missed you.”

Ten sniffed. Mark didn’t know if it was a trick of the light, but his face seemed to soften somewhat.

“And I missed you too. Obviously,” Ten’s expression went concerned, “Please tell me you’re not going to hug me.”

Donghyuck shook his head.

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

Ten’s shoulders fell in relief. He sighed. 

“So you’re here, at last, after decades... and you brought a friend.”

Ten turned his gaze to Mark and Mark forced himself to stand still. He forced himself to keep his head bowed as Ten surveyed him. He could hear Donghyuck’s hissed words in his ears… _ flawless performance… _

“I couldn’t show up here without a pet, could I?” 

“No, you certainly couldn’t... It really was a tragedy what happened to your last one,” Ten’s voice was louder, nearer. It took a moment for that to register, while Mark processed his words. For the first time, he wondered about the pet Donghyuck had before he came into the picture. Both of the vampires they’d met so far had mentioned him. 

Donghyuck had gone silent, but Ten didn’t seem averse to filling the sudden vacuum. 

“This one looks to be a suitable replacement… look at me, darling,” Ten’s voice was lower, a purr. It ticked up at the end, like a suggestion. It wasn’t one. 

Mark set his jaw, then looked up. Ten was peering at him, his eyes narrowed. His eyes travelled down Mark’s form, then back up again. He hummed, a small smile playing across his lips. 

“He doesn’t like me,” Ten straightened, his fingers coming up to his lips. His eyes twinkled with mirth and Mark could only watch, wondering if he was ever going to be good at this, or if he was always destined to face the threat of far-too-observant vampires.

“I like him, though. Cute.”

Mark curled his fingers in. He wondered if he could get Donghyuck to reconsider slaying vampires that night. He’d snuck a silver plated pocket knife into his boot. He started entertaining ways of using it. 

Donghyuck barked out a laugh, “Watch out. He bites.” 

Mark felt a pair of fingers trail down the back of his hand, a brief touch from Donghyuck, a censure that nonetheless sent a chill traveling down his spine.

Mark exhaled and uncurled his fist. Soon, he told himself. He’d get to start slaying soon. 

After they bid their goodbyes to Ten, Donghyuck took Mark to meet several more vampires. Aside from Ten, they all had their pets with them. Mark watched the pets, trying his damnedest to be discreet about it. It was futile to try and mimic them entirely. He was hopeless, and he could never learn how to be a pet completely in a night. He tried, though. He told himself it was just another skill, something he could set his mind to achieve just as he had for fixing a car’s engine or sharpening a stake. Then, he set to learning it as best he could.

Donghyuck seemed to be showing him off. Well, not showing him off, exactly. Showing off that he had a pet, more like. He was spreading their cover far and wide – Donghyuck was coming back into the vampire scene, and he had a brand new pet with him. 

Mark got a fair few more compliments than he was expecting. He hated every single one of them. Every comment on his physique, or his silence (something the vampires mistook for being well-behaved) rankled him. His anger made a flush rise to his cheeks and a vampire commented on that too, praising his color. 

At some point, Donghyuck seemed to realize just how thin Mark’s patience had worn. Blank faced, he pressed a glass of wine nearly full to the brim into Mark’s hands and told him it was time to split up. He’d find some vampires, and start selling himself, and Mark could leave to try and coax some pets away into conversation. 

He issued it like an order, but Mark was beyond caring. He jumped at the opportunity to leave conversation with the vampires. 

It took him more than a quarter of an hour skulking around the periphery of rooms to even find a pet who wasn’t thoroughly attached to their master’s side. There was a tall man dressed in a curious fishnet shirt that showed more than it hid, standing solitary. He was looking over the scant refreshments table, poking through the sparse offerings. It seemed vampires didn’t think much of traditional human food, not for themselves or their pets. It struck Mark at the oddest times, how cruel they were. When it wasn’t the feeding, the controlling, the collars… it was the stale crackers and moldy cheese.

Mark slid in by the pet and sighed, theatrical.

“Gotta say – vampires can’t be all that powerful if they can’t even manage to get decent snacks. They couldn’t order takeout or something?”

It hadn’t even been that funny of an opener, but the man’s face split into a bright grin. It was a pleasant smile, not a single one of his teeth a sharp, pointed fang. Mark felt a smile grow on his face in kind. 

“I don’t know. I don’t think the hors d'oeuvres are too bad,” the man said, his voice deep, loud enough to carry over the constant murmur of conversation. 

“I think you’ve spent too long with vampires,” Mark replied, perhaps a touch too honest, his tongue already loosened with wine, “Starting to go crazy like them too.”

“Maybe. Life’s more fun when you’re a bit crazy, though, right?” the man said. Mark noticed his eyes were twinkling above his grin and, suddenly, he thought that this mission might not be quite so terrible after all. 

“Shit. I guess,” Mark swallowed, thick, “Look at me – insulting you and we haven’t even properly introduced ourselves. I’m Mark. What’s your name? Your real name, not what they call you.”

The man grinned, and stretched out a hand, lined with shining bejeweled rings, “Lucas. Nice to meet you, Mark.” 

Talking with Lucas was easy. So easy, in fact, that Mark kept forgetting himself and his mission. The time got away from him, as his questions for Lucas about his master quickly turned into a conversation about life. They talked about the odd state of the world, and whether it was fucked or not that they were secreted away in a giant vampire mansion while life continued just miles away in the city (Mark was of the view that it was, actually, pretty fucked. Lucas respectfully disagreed). 

Lucas took Mark around the rooms of the mansion, murmuring explanations of the rumor mill of gossip surrounding the vampires and their pets. As Mark sipped his wine and fell in to listening of the cadence of Lucas’s voice, all thoughts of drawing out his silver pocket knife vanished, and he started to feel – not comfortable, not exactly – but less on guard. Less as though he was going to be attacked at any moment, and had to always be coiled tight, ready to strike back. 

Mark considered it a testament to how well the night was going when, in scanning the room for another pet to interrogate, and instead finding Donghyuck, his spirits lifted. He was stuck for a moment, staring at Donghyuck, who was sitting solitary on a loveseat, nursing a glass of wine. He decided that his reaction was just because a familiar face among fangs and collars would have been a welcome sight for anyone. 

Mark paused, took another sip of his wine, then turned to Lucas.

“My master’s here,” he said, grin on his face, “Gotta go.”

Lucas grinned back in understanding, though he didn’t know the half of it, not really. Mark promised to find him again before the night was out. Then, he made his way to Donghyuck. 

Donghyuck had managed to locate one of the more secluded corners of the room. He struck a lonely silhouette, all by himself. A small fire crackled in a hearth beside him, casting his side in glowing orange, setting his features alight. He didn’t notice Mark until Mark had slid gracelessly into the seat across from him, sighing loud to announce his presence. 

Mark slumped back and suppressed a snort at the startled look on Donghyuck’s face, quickly stifled. 

“Should’ve known parties weren’t your kind of thing,” Mark sighed, “You’re way too cool for stuff like talking to people and socializing.” His voice came out warm, an effect he put down to the alcohol, or maybe conversing with another human being, perhaps even the warmth of the fire beside them. He’d felt cold, exposed throughout the night. The flames crackled and warmed his bare skin. 

“Mark,” Donghyuck greeted, distracted. 

His eyes flicked down over Mark, and Mark didn’t bother suppressing the grin that rose up when Donghyuck let out a slight, tired sigh, no doubt at Mark’s terrible posture, or something. His gaze went back to the flames. They licked high in his eyes, twin flickering fires, golden and bright and shining. Mark found it hard to look away. 

“‘m guessing spying didn’t work out so great for you?” Mark ventured. 

He took another sip of the wine, settling in deeper to the lounge seat. It was so comfortable. Everything in Ten’s mansion seemed to be – no expenses spared. Absentmindedly, he ran his finger over the seam in the leather.

“It went fine.” 

Donghyuck’s frown deepened minutely. A small crease appeared between his brow. Mark had the odd thought that he’d like to reach over, bridge the gap between them, and smooth out that crease. Why was Donghyuck frowning now? he thought. He was always frowning about something.

“Pets don’t sit like that, you know,” Donghyuck added, almost an afterthought. 

Mark could only laugh. 

“I missed you ordering me around,” Mark said. He didn’t bother straightening, or pulling his legs together. He was comfortable. Relaxed. 

Donghyuck’s gaze turned to him, and stayed on him, fully paying attention to him for the first time since he’d sat down. 

“Is that right?”

Mark felt a prickle start, all the way at the base of his spine. He exhaled, opening his mouth to confirm that he had, in fact, been joking. Donghyuck was supposed to have understood that Mark didn’t actually miss his orders. 

Mark opened his mouth to say all that. 

Instead, what came out was, “How do pets sit, then?”

Donghyuck’s eyes narrowed. One side of Donghyuck’s face was lit up in gold, and the other was fully cast in shadows. 

Mark didn’t look away. He could feel his cheeks begin to warm and he had the sneaking suspicion that it had nothing to do with the fire, and perhaps only a little to do with the wine.

At last, Donghyuck stopped searching Mark’s face. A corner of his mouth ticked up, vaguely amused. 

“They never sit across from their master,” Donghyuck’s voice was a low murmur, expunged of the troubled note that it had held earlier. 

“They should be at their master’s side, always,” Donghyuck continued. After, he paused, raising his glass of wine to his lips. He took a sip, his lips shining when he drew the glass back down again. He had on a small smile, too small to show the fangs that hid behind it.

“Oh,” Mark said, wondering if that was an order, an invitation, or if Donghyuck didn’t want him to move beside him at all and was just toying with him.

“And they should never take up that much space. Pets are supposed to complement their master,” Donghyuck gestured vaguely towards himself with his glass, then extended it out towards Mark, low, pointed, “They shouldn’t draw undue attention to themselves.”

Mark, following Donghyuck’s gaze, glanced down at his spread legs. The prickling, overwarm feeling started to spread from the small of his back, rising like displaced water. He looked up, caught between annoyance and something else, something even more unsettling, something that ran hot and liquid through his veins.

“Yeah?” he asked, and he was struck by how low his voice sounded. He reached for something combative to say, and landed on, “Sounds like you just don’t want me stealing your thunder.”

“I _ want _ you to act like you’re my pet,” Donghyuck answered, amused. 

And there he was. The dickhead vampire, returned. Mark’s commingling annoyance and something heated, unnamed, rose higher. They were in a room full of vampires and pets, soft conversation, soft laughter, murmured words between lovers. An inattentive audience, but an audience all the same. Any excuse for Donghyuck to demand obedience from him.

Mark would have liked to say that he chose his next action with utmost care, but he couldn’t, he hadn’t. He was solely motivated by wanting to catch Donghyuck off guard, and perhaps by the curious way the flames flickered across his features, and the odd inclination he had to want to see them up close. 

Mark set his wine glass down. He exhaled, and rose up off the couch. All he had to do was take a half step forward. Donghyuck’s expression hadn’t changed. He hadn’t even registered the movement, not until Mark was already kneeling between his legs.

The cold marble floor was hard, painful against Mark’s knees. He barely felt it, though, entranced as he was by Donghyuck’s reaction. Instead of amusement, disbelief colored his features. He’d gone impossibly still. His gaze never left Mark. Slowly, Mark felt the feverish heat climb up his neck.

“What are you doing?” Donghyuck asked, not a censure, not a reproach. Instead, he sounded curious.

“I’m acting,” Mark answered, all he could think of after a moment’s hesitation.

“Ah,” Donghyuck’s gaze strayed from Mark’s, flitting around the room, before settling back on him. A corner of his mouth ticked up, quickly hidden as he drew his wine glass back to his lips, “I see. Well done.”

Mark felt a brief flare of familiar annoyance. He’d been expecting – well, he hadn’t expected much, but Donghyuck’s reaction left him wanting. 

Mark had to break eye contact. He reached out and slid his hand under Donghyuck’s thigh. He heard an exhalation, sharp, half a gasp, as he leaned in. Donghyuck hadn’t believed he’d go so far in the name of acting. It felt like he’d been trying to call Mark’s bluff. 

Let him try, Mark thought. 

He pressed his lips to the inside of Donghyuck’s leg, at the point nearest him, where Donghyuck’s leg extended out past the edge of the couch. As Mark’s lips brushed against the soft fabric of Donghyuck’s trousers, he looked up, watching Donghyuck from under his lashes.

Donghyuck’s expression was achingly blank, impossible to read, especially in the dim room. Mark felt his fingers begin to tremble, but he didn’t flinch. He pushed forward, using his hand to spread Donghyuck’s leg wider, and pressing another kiss on Donghyuck’s inner thigh, this point inches higher than the other. 

Donghyuck’s lips parted, and Mark came to the sudden, world tilting realization that it wasn’t his hand that was shaking. It was Donghyuck. Donghyuck was trembling, his whole body, down to his legs. Mark pulled back slightly, raising his chin to look at Donghyuck directly. 

He wondered if Donghyuck was angry, if Mark had gone too far and he was shaking with rage. It was a terrifying thought – the prospect of angering a vampire, his sole ally in a house full of predators who wouldn’t hesitate to turn on him in a moment’s notice. That didn’t seem to be the case, though. Donghyuck didn’t look to be angry. With his lips, just parted, and his lashes fallen low, he looked… Mark blinked, slow, as the thought came to him. 

He looked hungry. On a human, his expression would be called arousal. But there was a host of subtle differences… the tips of his fangs, just visible beyond his parted lips. His eyes, more golden than they ought to have been, more golden than could just be attributed to the flickering firelight. 

Mark wondered what he should do. This wasn’t part of the act, it couldn’t be. Donghyuck wasn’t pretending for the sake of the other inhabitants in the room. There was no way they’d have been able to make out their features, there was no reason to feign – whatever Donghyuck was feeling.

With a quickening heartbeat, Mark bowed his head. He let his eyes fall closed and pressed his lips again to Donghyuck’s inner thigh. He trailed the kisses higher, lingering, lasting, taking care not to make any movements too rushed or jarring. 

He wasn’t quite sure what he was doing anymore. His motivations were lost, evaporated in the heat that burned through him, through his veins. A fire smoldered in his stomach. Mark paused, realizing in his daze that he’d already trailed kisses all the way up Donghyuck’s thigh. He cracked open his eyes, wondering where to go from there, looking to Donghyuck for guidance, an order, something.

Donghyuck’s expression had, if anything, gone hungrier. He reached out, tentative. Mark stilled as Donghyuck leaned forward. His breath caught as Donghyuck lay his hand with an impossible tenderness on the side of Mark’s face. 

“Donghyuck…” Mark said, and not even a moment later, regretted opening his lips. Donghyuck flinched at the sound of Mark’s voice, as though he’d been slapped in the face. 

“Donghyuck?” Mark repeated, questioning, unsure. Donghyuck jammed his eyes shut. He withdrew his hand from Mark’s face, and Mark felt the lack.

“Don’t,” Donghyuck said, and Mark’s confusion began to sour and turn. His brows lowered.

“Don’t _ what_? Are pets not allowed to speak now?” 

“You’re not – ” Donghyuck growled. He cut himself off, opening his eyes, glaring already. Mark glared back up at him, drawing his hand from Donghyuck’s thigh. 

“Don’t forget your place,” Donghyuck said, pointed, as he gazed down at him.

Just for that, Mark stood up. He felt his fingers curl into fists at his sides as he glared down at Donghyuck.

“I thought my place was right here,” he said, belligerent, uncaring, before setting his jaw. 

Donghyuck’s nostrils flared, a break in composure that some distant, rational part of Mark recognized boded ill for him. Donghyuck pushed up off the couch to draw eye to eye with Mark. Some scant inches separated them, and Mark could see every sign of anger etched in Donghyuck’s features.

“You’re acting as if we’re actually what we’re pretending to be. Don’t presume that because I allow you to do certain things to keep up appearances – .”

Mark just about saw red.

“I wasn’t presuming _ shit_, asshole.” 

And okay, maybe Mark could feel the sting of that one after his outburst. Maybe he had actually thought, for a moment there, that Donghyuck might have felt the same heated, undeniable pull he had felt. But that was poorly conceived, clearly. A mistake, a briefly considered and quickly discarded thought.

“If you’re going to be this difficult, I’m leaving,” Donghyuck said.

“Fine by me,” Mark spat.

The reflection of the fire seemed to flare higher in Donghyuck’s eyes but he only gazed at Mark. Then, a moment later, he sighed and turned away. He hadn’t relaxed or untensed at all. He seemed to still be barely maintaining his calm when he continued, his head turned aside, a tendon jumping out in his clenched jaw.

“We should kiss.”

Mark blinked, so taken by surprise that he forgot his anger for a moment. It came roaring back in an instant.

“Yeah, no,” he managed to not quite growl, “Fuck off.”

Donghyuck exhaled a mighty sigh. His eyes slid back to Mark.

“We just got into an argument in front of dozens of vampires and their pets.”

Donghyuck left most of it unsaid. They’d been overheard. Mark didn’t even need to look to feel their eyes. All at once he could feel them, the hush over the room, the whispers. They needed to convince them. 

Mark was pissed off. The argument had been just as much his own fault as Donghyuck’s, but he couldn’t think straight. Donghyuck was asking this of him, so soon after he’d told Mark in no uncertain terms that he felt nothing for him, not even an inkling of warm feeling. He was cold, all the way through. A vampire just like the rest. Cold blooded, inhuman. 

“Right.”

Donghyuck faced him squarely, one brow raised, “Right? You’re fine with – “

“Obviously,” Mark muttered, cutting him off, listing forward. 

He’d kiss Donghyuck, but he was doing it on his own terms. He pushed his hand through Donghyuck’s hair and pulled him close, stemming off the shocked exhalation from Donghyuck’s lips with a forceful kiss. 

Clashing of teeth was even more painful when one of you had fangs, Mark realized. He silenced his own involuntary moan by pressing in closer, wrapping his free hand around Donghyuck’s waist. 

Mark couldn’t deny the rush it gave him, the momentary sense of victory he felt as Donghyuck melted into the kiss. The icy vampire lost his rigidity, relaxed in Mark’s arms. Though Mark knew for a fact that it wasn’t for any reason other than the act they were putting on, part of him was unable to register that. He felt Donghyuck subtly shift, subtly align himself, growing responsive to Mark.

Mark parted his lips, and Donghyuck parted his own.

Mark tugged gently on the back of Donghyuck’s hair, and Donghyuck followed his pull, angling his head, opening his mouth wider for Mark’s easier access.

Mark groaned as he kissed Donghyuck, as he tasted the sweet taste on Donghyuck’s tongue. Fruity, full, where Mark’s drink had tasted of rich spice. Mark’s hand drifted down, down, below the small of Donghyuck’s back. His little finger went so far as the curve of Donghyuck’s ass before Donghyuck pulled back and nipped on his lower lip in warning. His bite wasn’t hard enough to break skin, just to serve as a reminder. Mark sighed into his lips, but dutifully dragged his hand forward, gripping Donghyuck’s hip instead. 

Mark lowly registered how the murmuring around them had gotten louder. Some of them had taken notice, at least. He moved to pull him closer still. He hoped to pull Donghyuck flush to him, coaxing him to shove his thigh between Mark’s own, heat up the show a bit for their audience. 

Donghyuck, however, went rigid the moment Mark tried it. 

“Okay,” Donghyuck exhaled, a strangled gasp, “That’s enough. They get the picture.”

“What?” Mark hissed. 

He tried to angle in closer, just so that it might look as though they were still lip locked. Donghyuck let out a strange sound, high pitched, stifled, and backed up the same distance Mark had leaned forward.

Mark narrowed his eyes at Donghyuck, wondering why he’d quickly ( too quickly) extricated himself from Mark. Donghyuck wouldn’t meet his eyes.

“What the fuck?” he muttered, only to quiet as Donghyuck’s eyes flicked back to him. His expression looked strained as he reached forward and hooked his finger through the loop of Mark’s collar.

Mark inhaled, sharp. 

“Can you not argue with me? Just this once?” Donghyuck hissed. 

The strangled note in his voice, and not the tug he gave Mark’s collar, was what propelled Mark forward. Donghyuck released his hold on the collar after Mark had stumbled forward a few steps, and Mark could only gaze at the back of his head, his cheeks burning as he brimmed with questions. 

He didn’t even take note of the vampires and pets who watched them go, not until Donghyuck had already led him beyond the room, into the dark hallway beyond, further, further, until they were tucked away in a dark alcove. Donghyuck glanced out of it, and Mark finally remembered why they’d been kissing, why they were doing everything they’d done. The act. It was all part of the act. 

Was that why Donghyuck had shoved him back when he’d try to pull him close? Was that another reminder to Mark not to get lost in the plot? 

Mark exhaled, and straightened. Confusion, annoyance, and shame commingled to warm his cheeks. Meanwhile, Donghyuck still wouldn’t meet his eyes. Donghyuck drew back into the alcove and folded in on himself, crossing his arms and bowing his head. 

Mark felt his annoyance start to diminish, just a little, only a modicum, as he looked at Donghyuck’s shoulders. He and Donghyuck were about the same height but, for the first time, Mark realized that Donghyuck was slighter than him. Donghyuck might have been stronger in every way that counted but, just then, he didn’t look it.

Suddenly, Mark was in the odd position of feeling obligated to comfort Donghyuck, even though he was still mad at him and still half embarrassed from the rejection from earlier.

“Are you… okay?” he asked, grudging.

“Are you dense?” Donghyuck sighed, raising one of his hands to pinch his nose bridge as though thwarting off an oncoming headache. The momentary sympathy Mark had felt for him vanished. He snorted.

“Yeah, you’re fine,” Mark listed against the opposite side of the alcove. The sounds of the party were muffled, the noises of other souls distant. Mark hooked his thumbs in his pockets and surveyed Donghyuck. A thought occurred to him, “Did you see or hear something? One of your enemies?”

Donghyuck raised his head from his hand, appearing genuinely lost.

“What? No.” 

He glanced away, out the mouth of the alcove. Mark’s sense of unease grew, upon noticing Donghyuck had sucked his lower lip in between his teeth. He was biting his lip. 

“Okay…” Mark raised a skeptical brow._ Something _ had disturbed his vampire. 

“I need to take care of something,” Donghyuck muttered. He glanced to Mark quickly, looking back away before Mark could make eye contact. 

“In the meantime, get back to gathering information from the pets,” Donghyuck turned. He paused. He didn’t glance over his shoulder but Mark heard his voice, muffled, “Don’t get into trouble.”

“Whatever you say, master,” Mark replied, flat. 

Donghyuck’s shoulders hiked up momentarily, but they fell after a moment and no counter came. Mark watched Donghyuck walk away, feeling rather like he’d missed something vital somewhere along the way.

Mark fought briefly with the desire to follow him and figure out just what he needed to take care of so urgently. In the end, he dismissed it. He’d rather get drunk and gossip with the pets than spend another moment trying to unravel the inscrutable vampire. 

“...and then we did it again in the crypt, this time with him on top,” Lucas leaned forward, punctuating his final line with a broad gesture of his glass of wine.

“No,” Mark giggled. That was awful, “That’s awful,” he said, aloud, “A crypt?” 

Lucas’s eyes twinkled. 

“Maybe it was a crypt. Maybe it was just the groundskeeper’s shed.”

Mark’s laughter started up again. He batted at the corners of his eyes, dying them.

“That’s even worse.”

“How is that worse?”

Lucas’s lips parted in mock outrage, but he could barely feign offense for a moment before a smile overtook his face once more. Lucas was pretty, Mark thought. He was tall and handsome and his eyes were always lit up like he was moments from breaking out into laughter. 

He said things and he meant them, and Mark liked that too. 

“I dunno… dirty tools are grosser than...” Mark frowned, as he tried to recall how the word went. He gave up, “You know. Where they keep the bodies. At least crypts are clean.”

Lucas reclined against his hand, gazing at Mark, his eyes crinkled out at the corners, his smile broad.

“Are you telling me you and your master haven’t done it in some sketchy places?”

Mark realized, belated, that he was mean to be putting on a front. Acts. Acting. Donghyuck. Doing it… with Donghyuck. His whole body felt overheated. Mark wondered idly if dressing so poorly had backfired, and if he’d already caught a cold.

“Uh….” Mark’s eyes went up, trying to spin something that sounded plausible, “I don’t know. We haven’t.”

Mark looked down. Lucas’s smile had dimmed. His brows were knit together in thought. Oh, no. Too plausible. Mark winced. 

“At all?”

Mark wondered if this would be the moment where their cover was blown. He searched Lucas’s face, found no suspicion, only sympathy. Mark exhaled.

He shook his head. He was supposed to be figuring out Lucas’s master’s weaknesses. All he’d gathered so far was that the vampire was rather weak for Lucas himself. 

Lucas had a dark lace collar, printed with gold filigree, embedded with shining gemstones. Lucas was handsome, and he was dressed handsomely. Everything about him was spoiled, bespoke. His vampire had to have a soft spot for him indeed, to let him wander around free as he had all night. 

Mark’s head spun with liquor. How was anything about that helpful when it came to slaying? It felt like Donghyuck had sent him on a doomed mission. It felt like he’d wasted Mark’s time. He wondered where Donghyuck was and whether his time, at least, had been productive.

“Maybe he’s trying to save you,” Lucas said, thoughtful. 

His eyes were wide, sincere. Mark looked into them, lost for a moment. He realized belatedly that their heads had fallen close, where they were slumped together on the couch.

“Save me?” Mark repeated, confused. 

A memory of Donghyuck pinning him to the ground, seconds from biting into his neck briefly surfaced in the top of his mind. Donghyuck, saving him. Mark smiled at the sheer nonsense of the thought. 

The tip of Lucas’s tongue darted out to moisten his lips, “For a special occasion.”

Mark hesitated, unsure exactly what Lucas could be talking about now. Lucas leaned in closer, cleared his throat, indicating Mark ought to follow suit. Gamely, Mark leaned in. He held his breath, as Lucas’s face loomed closer. Mark could feel the heat radiating from him, from the sparse inches between them. 

“Some vampires,” Lucas began, grave. Mark’s eyes fell low, to his lips. His voice was so deep. It seemed to reverberate in his ears, “Believe that having sex with virgins gives them greater power.”

Mark tried not to choke. He managed a half-cough, and had to look away, his cheeks burning.

“Oh yeah,” he managed, a wheeze, “Yes. That’s what he’s doing.”

“Ah…”

When Mark chanced a glance back at Lucas, his gaze was tracking over Mark’s frame with naked curiosity. Mark took a sip of his wine, and wondered when Donghyuck would be finished with whatever he’d run off to, and when he’d be coming to find Mark. 

He wasn’t used to the nocturnal life. Sleepiness, drunkenness, it all compounded to a sort of delirium, an ethereal feeling. The thick, incense scented air in Ten’s mansion made it feel like Mark had stepped into another plane, another world apart from his own, populated by strangely attired vampires and people in collars. 

“But it’s not true,” Lucas murmured, low. Mark’s eyes fell to him. Lucas was smiling again, broad, genuine. His eyes twinkled, and the gems in his collar twinkled on his neck.

“What they believe, I mean. My master said a lot of what vampires believe is old fashioned. Your master would never be able to tell if you...”

Mark’s ears perked up.

“Your master says some interesting things,” he tried. 

“Mark,” Lucas reached forward. 

Mark stilled, automatic, a response to being perpetually on guard from the moment he stepped off his bike and started walking towards the mansion on the horizon. Lucas’s hand ceased in its path. A tight, laden moment passed, and then he withdrew it. Mark looked up to his face, questioning, wondering. Lucas only smiled. Mark wasn’t sure if it was a trick of the light, but Lucas’s eyes seemed to have gone duller. 

“I’ve talked enough about my master,” he said, dashing Mark’s hopes, “Tell me about yours.”

Though Lucas proved to be a dead end, it still took Mark longer than he would have liked to admit to convince himself to draw away from him. Even then, he had to make promises he wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to keep, saying that he’d be coming to the next ball, that he’d share a drink with Lucas and his master then. 

Mark wondered what he’d been thinking when he’d made those promises. The truth was, he’d found it rather hard to think with Lucas in such close proximity. He’d felt on edge before the night had even begun, and someone like Lucas showing interest in him and kindness to him had been refreshing, welcome. 

Mark cursed under his breath as he searched futilely for Donghyuck. He found nothing, no one. His aggravation was starting to mount. He was debating the relative merits of marching outside to his bike and ditching the ball, or taking out his knife and starting slaying, when he finally spied a couple of familiar faces. 

Jungwoo and Doyoung, holding court in a corner in a mirror image of the one Mark had found Donghyuck in earlier. Mark sucked in a breath, and walked over to them. 

“Pet,” Doyoung greeted, and Mark considered it a credit to his unending patience that he didn’t even twitch in reaction. He nodded, then turned and nodded to Jungwoo.

“Have you seen my master?” he managed to ask, in a measured voice.

Jungwoo giggled, light and bubbly. Doyoung hushed him, his lip curled up in a wicked smile.

“You might want to try the second floor. Oh, and do be sure to knock before you open any doors.”

The second floor was quiet, a hush fallen over it. Mark felt as though he was treading on forbidden ground. Aside from the faint yellow glow of the candlelights and fireplace flames on the first floor, there were no lights. The long hallway stretched ahead of Mark, illuminated only by starlight from a tall window at the end of it. 

Mark walked down it, holding his breath simply because it felt like he ought to, like any intentional disturbance of the peace wouldn’t go forgiven. The wooden floor creaked beneath his boots. He strained his ears as he passed door upon door, listening for the sounds of conversation, Donghyuck’s voice, anything. He heard nothing, only the whispered voices from below. A chill crawled down his spine, but he forged on.

He pushed aside his nerves, reached out, and tried a door. It opened with a screech to a dark, unlit room. There was a mass of bodies engaged in… something on a bed, the planes of their bare skin lit up in indigo and navy from the windows to the night sky behind them. They didn’t stop on hearing the door open, or on seeing Mark silhouetted in the doorframe. If anything, their activities became more fervent, more energetic.

“Tired of just watching, pet?” a female voice called out, sumptuous, alluring. Mark snapped out of it, shutting the door as quietly and quickly as he was able. Cheeks burning, the image of the orgy seared onto his mind, he kept walking. 

“Donghyuck, what the hell are you doing?” he muttered. 

The next door Mark tried made him wish it had just been another orgy. He only saw a couple figures, backlit by a single flickering candle flame. A man was bent over, his fangs sunk in the neck of another. Mark closed the door before he’d opened it beyond a crack, and stayed still for several long moments, chest heaving, trying to calm himself, trying to convince himself to move on. 

Even as his footsteps thudded forward, he felt compelled to turn back. He felt the urge to save the person, though he knew they were likely a pet, that they were willingly submitting. He hated it, the thought of a vampire feeding, and him, not doing anything to stop them. He hated vampires. He was starting to hate himself a bit, more and more, the more he saw, the more he allowed without fighting back, and the more he participated in. 

He thought, as he cracked open the next door, that he was never going to hate Donghyuck more than he did in that moment. And then he saw him. 

Donghyuck, his head rolled back, an expression of satisfaction on his face and someone between his legs. Donghyuck was leaning up against a desk, facing the door. Mark could only see the back of the blond stranger’s head but he’d already seen all he needed to see to understand what was going on. 

A sound escaped Mark’s lips, somewhere between choking and an incoherent curse. He should close the door, a part of his mind said. He shouldn’t have been there. He shouldn’t have been watching this. 

Then, Donghyuck’s head rolled forward. Mark was frozen in place, unable to move from where he stood, transfixed as if by a spell as Donghyuck’s eyes cracked open and landed on him. His face felt like it was on fire. The stirrings of something hot and liquid started in his gut as Donghyuck noticed him, and as a smile slowly started to spread across Donghyuck’s lips. He grinned at Mark, sloppy, lopsided, his eyes heavy lidded, all while the stranger between his legs continued their task. 

Mark felt the unnameable heat roiling in him take form in anger. He couldn’t move. He was rooted in that spot, watching Donghyuck and the stranger, Donghyuck grinning at him like he knew exactly what he was doing to Mark, like he knew exactly what was going through Mark’s head.

Donghyuck broke eye contact. He closed his eyes and let out a resounding _ moan _ and Mark’s thoughts went static. He broke from the spell he’d been under, stepped into the room, letting the door close behind him. Donghyuck moaned again, louder, covering up the sound of the door closing. 

Mark felt his anger mount, indignation at working on Donghyuck’s stupid mission while Donghyuck was doing_ this _with a stranger. He was feeling annoyance, too, fury at what he’d seen in his search for Donghyuck. Underneath it all, there was a small, ugly undercurrent of jealousy, possession. Donghyuck was meant to be his master, wasn’t he? And Mark was meant to be his pet, at least for then, at least for that night. 

Mark had the thought that Donghyuck was doing this on purpose, that it was just another one of his cruel vampire tricks that he’d sought someone else out when Mark had been willing… when he’d offered…. 

“Hey, master,” a slight pop, as the stranger pulled off of Donghyuck, which Mark was resolutely _ not _ thinking about, “Having fun?”

“Oh, don’t stop on his account,” Donghyuck exhaled. 

Mark saw, out of the corner of his eye, Donghyuck push his hand through the stranger’s blond hair, guide him back to take Donghyuck again into his mouth. Mark set his jaw. 

“So this is the pressing business you had to attend to, huh?”

A soft moan filtered through Donghyuck’s lips. Mark didn’t want to know how red his face was when Donghyuck’s eyes cracked open again. He only hoped his anger outweighed his embarrassment.

Donghyuck hummed a confirmation. The corners of his lips were ticked up. Mark stood there, stilled by the realization that, right after the moment in front of the fireplace, right after the kiss in front of the crowded room, Donghyuck had come running straight to this. Mark could see the stranger’s blond head bobbing up and down in the edge of his vision. 

Fucking _ hell_, he hated that stranger even more than Donghyuck in that moment. He hadn’t noticed a collar on his neck, not even a ribbon. He couldn’t see his fangs and he wasn’t eager to take a closer look, but he could surmise the stranger was a vampire. 

He hated him. It was purely irrational, but he couldn’t help but fall into it.

Mark fixed his gaze on Donghyuck. He slipped closer, the starlight at his back, close enough that his elbow brushed up against Donghyuck’s, close enough that he’d be able to read Donghyuck’s face as he said, “Really? You were that fucking turned on?” 

Donghyuck’s eyes slid to Mark, wariness creeping in. 

Mark continued, hoping Donghyuck wouldn’t notice that his voice was a touch shaky, “All I did was kiss you.”

Donghyuck’s eyes narrowed. His smile turned to a frown, and Mark felt a small thrill of satisfaction amidst the hurt and anger. At the very least, he was the cause of this. He’d caused the icy vampire to feel something. 

His thrill of victory was short lived. The next moment, Donghyuck raised his hand and hooked a couple fingers through Mark’s collar. His cold, thin fingers brushed up against the sensitive skin of Mark’s neck and then he _ tugged _ and Mark, in his surprise, followed the pull.

“I’m getting tired of hearing your voice. Leave us.”

Mark blinked.

“I’ll leave,” he said, and then, because he was a bullheaded idiot, and he couldn’t help but notice the stranger had slowed, following their exchange, “But you have to kiss me first.”

“You’re so… irritating,” Donghyuck said, in a thick, affected tone. His eyelids had fallen low again, and Mark was beginning to feel heated stirring in his gut. He waited, as patient as he was able. 

Donghyuck slipped his fingers out from the collar and issued a curt, “Fine.”

Mark leaned in closer then pulled up just short, allowing Donghyuck to be the one to close the gap between them. He could hear Donghyuck’s breathing, shallow, uneven, and then Donghyuck’s lips were pressed to his own, in a kiss that was harsh and bruising.

Mark couldn’t withhold the laugh the bubbled up and out from him. For all of Donghyuck’s posturing, he’d eagerly kissed him. Mark didn’t want that to be the end of it, though, not when Donghyuck’s lips tasted so sweet, and especially not when he’d had the nerve to grin at him over the stranger’s head. Mark raised his hand, slid his fingers along Donghyuck’s jawline. Donghyuck exhaled, shaky, his lips parting. 

Mark slipped his tongue past Donghyuck’s lips, and was rewarded with a full body tremor, as Donghyuck shook against him. He tensed his fingers on Donghyuck’s jaw, as he twisted his tongue in a swirl around Donghyuck’s own. Donghyuck moaned, audible, almost as loud as his feigned moans from before. 

It wasn’t good enough. 

Mark growled and pulled away. Catching his breath, he noticed Donghyuck’s lips, wet with spit, pink and rosy from his bruising kiss. With a heady feeling, he angled back in again to press his mouth to Donghyuck’s neck.

Mark turned his attention to a tendon in Donghyuck’s neck, recalling how he’d gone crazy when Donghyuck had done the same to him, wanting to return the favor. Donghyuck gasped, startled, in his ear. Mark, however, didn’t bother teasing the way Donghyuck had. 

His open mouthed kiss quickly turned, as he applied pressure, suction. Mark lathed the sea-salt taste of sweat from Donghyuck’s neck as Donghyuck let out hitching, sighing breaths. He began to worry the same spot on Donghyuck’s neck with his teeth. He may not have had fangs, but he nipped hard enough at Donghyuck’s skin to make the sensation lasting, hard enough to make it just on the edge of breaking skin. 

Donghyuck’s hips bucked forward. Mark smiled into the kiss, not envying the stranger’s position. That had been a brutally sudden thrust.

Mark slid his hand from Donghyuck’s shoulder to his neck, framing the side of it, light. His skin felt searing hot against Donghyuck’s as Donghyuck’s exhalations started to get deeper, less even. Mark chased that unevenness, the signs of fissures along Donghyuck’s unaffected exterior. He trailed soft bites lower, hoping to make him get loud. In his haste, he dragged his teeth across Donghyuck’s skin too harshly on accident. Before he could issue an apology, Donghyuck let out a single intelligible word. 

“Oh,” he said, in a soft, breathless sigh that ruffled Mark’s hair. 

Mark’s mind went static. He did it again, dragging his teeth just hard enough to draw blood.

“Mark,” Donghyuck said, urgent, needy, as though it’d been on the tip of his tongue and he couldn’t hold it back anymore. Mark paused, wondering if, in his delirium, he’d imagined it. He held his breath, but no uttered confirmation came. Donghyuck didn’t say it again. 

“Oh,” Donghyuck repeated, as his hips juttered. Mark had to hold him still so he could keep sucking hickeys onto his skin, “_Oh._”

As Donghyuck got closer, as his body wracked, shaking, trembling beside Mark’s, Mark returned at last to his lips. Mark didn’t have to guide Donghyuck this time. He didn’t have to lead him on or encourage him. Donghyuck’s lips fell readily open for him. He whimpered as his tongue slipped greedily into Mark’s mouth. 

At last, Donghyuck pulled back from Mark, breaking their kiss. With a cry that was only muffled by pressing his lips to the crook of Mark’s neck, Donghyuck came. 

At the edge of Mark’s notice, the stranger pulled off from Donghyuck and rose to stand. He swiped the back of his hand across his mouth. Mark paid him no more attention as Donghyuck turned to list against him, and Mark was forced to hold up his full weight. 

“Donghyuck, I don’t… understand,” the stranger said, his voice hoarse. 

Donghyuck had fucked his throat raw, Mark realized. _ Jesus, _he thought, lightheaded. He was more than half hard himself, and the thought of Donghyuck doing that wasn’t helping matters. 

Donghyuck said nothing, his breathing still deep, uneven, his face still buried in Mark’s neck. 

Mark looked down at the top of Donghyuck’s head. His hair was mussed and in complete disarray, unkempt for the first time Mark had seen it. He regretted having to look away, but he directed his gaze up at the stranger. Distracted, he assessed him. A vampire, going by the shining tips of his fangs that jutted out over his frown. A pissed off vampire, at that, going by the muscled arms he had crossed over his chest. 

Mark had no idea what to say to him. He hadn’t anticipated this. He might have, some small part of him, hoped for it. But he had no idea what to say to defuse the situation, and Donghyuck looked to be of no help anytime soon. He was still boneless, slumped against Mark.

“Dude,” Mark began, waiting until the vampire turned his gaze to him to continue, “Why are you still here?”

The vampire’s handsome features contorted in fury. 

“Mark…” Donghyuck exhaled, tired beyond measure. Mark glanced back down at him, considering that maybe that hadn’t been the wisest thing he’d ever said to a vampire. 

“The nerve your pet has is unbelievable,” the vampire said, hoarsely, “First, he interrupts us. Then, he addresses me directly, as if he’s anything more than a warm hole for you – “

“Ugh,” Donghyuck lifted his hand, “You two are both exhausting – both of you, just… stop.” 

There was a moment of hesitation, of thick tension, as Mark and the vampire stared at each other over Donghyuck’s head. 

Then, with seemingly mighty effort, Donghyuck peeled himself off from Mark. Wary, slumped against the desk from his own exertions, Mark watched as Donghyuck painstakingly tucked himself back into his pants, did up the buttons of pants one by one. He sighed when he was done, into the breathless room, still taut with tension. Donghyuck lifted his head and pushed his hand through his hair, a noble effort to fix his mussed hair. 

When he spoke, it was the vampire he addressed.

“You were lovely, Jeno. I’m sorry my pet interrupted us,” Mark’s stomach barely had time to twist before Donghyuck continued, pointed, “We’ll be taking our leave now, though. Sorry, again. I’ll try and make it up to you sometime.”

With that, Donghyuck gingerly picked his way to the door, leaving the vampire standing alone in the room. Nonplussed, Mark followed a half step behind him. After the door closed behind them again, Donghyuck once more shifted his weight onto Mark. It had seemed to take every bit of strength he had remaining left in his body for him to make the short walk to the room’s door all by himself. Now that they were out of the vampire’s eyesight, Donghyuck once again allowed himself show even this small admission of weakness. Mark’s arm came up to his waist automatically to help support his weight.

“You always have to make things difficult. You nearly got me into trouble back there,” Donghyuck said, his reprimand softened by his breathlessness.

Mark felt somewhat like he was floating on a cloud, the kind of utter contentment and satiation he would have felt had he been the one that had climaxed, and not Donghyuck. Mark hummed, chancing a glance at Donghyuck as they walked together, wrapped around each other. He traced his profile, lit up in the starlight, his sweat-dampened skin reflective, shining. His eyes fell lower, to the bruises that were just blooming, flushed and pink on Donghyuck’s skin. 

“You nearly got yourself into trouble,” Mark corrected, then, because he was feeling charitable, “D’you want to borrow the collar? I kinda fucked up your neck.”

Donghyuck paused. He raised his fingers in an aborted move towards his neck, then he seemed to realize himself. He stopped, scowled, and continued his slow pace forward, determinedly facing ahead, avoiding Mark’s gaze. 

“I shouldn’t have let it get that far. I shouldn’t have – ,” he cut himself off, worked his jaw. Mark could only watch the muscle in his jaw jump, and think about how the skin there had tasted as he’d sucked a bruise onto it. Donghyuck’s eyes slid back to him, “We won’t be doing anything like that again. Not unless it’s absolutely necessary.”

Mark stepped back and let Donghyuck take the stairs himself as they descended back into the thick of the party. The party seemed to have devolved in the time they’d been upstairs. Some of the activity Mark had seen behind the closed doors had spilled out into the open, vampires and pets tucked away, some kissing each other in dark corners, some feeding on their pets. He tried not to pay attention to the dark silhouettes, tried to keep his attention just on Donghyuck.

“Are you sure you want that?” he asked, mild. 

Donghyuck scoffed, but said nothing. He made for the door, concealing his exhaustion, somehow appearing unaffected as they made their way through the bodies and incense-laden air. 

They walked out into the brisk night, and Mark breathed it in, filling his lungs with the first taste of fresh air since they’d walked into the mansion. 

He turned to Donghyuck as they walked from Ten’s mansion, a grin on his face. 

“You’d better not get a hard-on while you’re sitting behind me.”

Donghyuck’s shoulders hiked up. He sighed, tight, and said nothing. Mark’s grin grew wider, glad at last to have one thing he could lord over Donghyuck.

“Thing is, if you do, I can’t promise I won’t be driving distracted. So really, for both our sakes, try and contain your attraction to me at least for the ride back.”

Donghyuck barked out a bitter laugh and crossed his arms over his chest. 

“That shouldn’t be difficult. Whenever you open your mouth, you remind me of all your least attractive qualities.”

Mark felt his smile turn sour, into a scowl.

“Ha ha,” he said, flat, “Funny.” 

And then Donghyuck turned to Mark. He offered him a brief flash of a blinding smile, and Mark slowed in his steps, his heart skipping a beat. He shook himself and caught up, deciding that it was well past his bedtime. The night had stretched too long and somehow, over the course of it, he’d well and truly lost his mind.


	3. post mortem

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> part three - now in this fic !

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw for vampire slaying and blood mentions !

They got back from the ball too late. Dawn was threatening to break, the barest lightening of the indigo sky at the base of the horizon. When Donghyuck asked, regret in his face and distaste in his tone, if he could stay the day, Mark agreed without arguing. He wasn’t an asshole, not all the time. He knew what happened to vampires in daylight, and he wasn’t about to condemn Donghyuck to that fate.

He wasn’t completely convinced that he needed to give his bed up to Donghyuck, but that was a different story. 

“Stop huffing. If you’re this upset, go sleep on the floor.” 

Donghyuck still managed to sound completely smug, even when his words were slurred with exhaustion and punctuated by a yawn.

“It’s_ my _ bed,” Mark muttered.

He squinted up at the line of sunlight that streaked across his ceiling, a stretch of brightness no wider than his pinky finger. Vampires were weak, he thought.

“Sleep on the couch, then.”

Mark huffed again. 

“I don’t have a couch.”

He rolled, turning over to face Donghyuck. Donghyuck was looking at him. His lip was curled, though the usual effect ruined by how low his lids had fallen and how he’d pillowed his head on his hands. For a moment, all Mark could do was look at him. Mark had seen Donghyuck climax and this somehow felt more intimate. 

“You don’t have a _ couch_?”

And then the moment was over. 

Mark rolled his eyes. 

“Fuck you,” he said, without much heat. 

Mark guessed it was a testament to how tired Donghyuck was that he came up with no biting reply. His lids fell lower and the corner of his lips twitched up into a fraction of a smile.

“I’m just saying… all those weapons and no couch? Your priorities are off.”

Donghyuck’s eyes had closed and Mark, though he would never admit to it, took the opportunity to steal a glance. The sight of Donghyuck in his bed was strange, like seeing a man in designer clothes drive up to the shop in a piece of junk car. It just… didn’t make sense.

“I thought you guys slept in coffins,” Mark said, because the air felt too tight all of a sudden. He had to say something, or his thoughts would veer off. 

Donghyuck’s smile crept higher. It was disconcerting. Mark couldn’t look away.

“If you’re going to talk while I’m trying to sleep, at least do it about something interesting.”

Maybe Mark was getting desensitized to Donghyuck, because he just sighed and closed his mouth. He rolled back over, crossing his arms over his chest. This was crazy, sharing a bed with a vampire. Allowing himself to lower his defences as far as he had in front of a vampire. Donghyuck and he might have shared a few experiences and shared a few goals but, at the end of the day, Donghyuck wasn’t like him. He wasn’t human. He was still a vampire. 

“…Talk about the sun.”

Mark’s gaze slid over to Donghyuck. 

“What?”

Donghyuck’s eyes cracked open, bright and glinting in the dark of Mark’s bedroom. Donghyuck was quiet for a long moment, and Mark was left wondering if he’d imagined he’d said anything at all. Donghyuck inhaled, sharp and audible.

“If you’re going to talk anyways… tell me how it feels. To feel the sun on your skin.”

Donghyuck was downplaying how much he wanted to hear that, Mark could tell. And just the fact that he could read that, that he could detect something of Donghyuck’s thoughts, led him to open his mouth and start speaking.

“Well, it’s hot.”

Donghyuck let out a soft sound that might have been a laugh. Mark paused, as Donghyuck’s eyelids fell closed again. 

“Fuck. You’ve really never been outside during the day. What’s the use in being immortal if your whole life is spent hiding in the dark?”

“It’s cold too. Don’t forget that.”

Mark watched him, “Right.”

And the sun was up, and it was hard to sleep anyways, even if he hadn’t had Donghyuck in his bed, so Mark kept talking. He talked about summers and sunshine, and piling in a van with his mother and father when he was younger, going to the beach side. Later, Johnny dragging him out hiking and camping, how he sulked and how Johnny coaxed him out into the sun. 

Donghyuck had probably long fallen asleep. His breathing was low and even by the time Mark’s own exhaustion caught up to him. Mark closed his eyes, and let sleep overtake him.

Mark woke to the feeling of a weight pressing on his right side, cold against his bare arms and through the thin fabric of his shirt. A puff of hot air tickled his neck, raising goosebumps across his skin. He blinked his eyes open, careful, slow and sluggish. At first, he was too out of it to stir and, then, he was too careful to do it. 

Donghyuck was lying right by him, curled up to his side like a bracketed parenthesis. Mark inhaled, sharp enough that he feared he’d wake Donghyuck. He held still, waiting, waiting, listening to the sound of his heartbeat and the steady, deep exhalations from Donghyuck’s lips. 

Once he got over his initial suspicions at waking to feel Donghyuck’s mouth only inches from his bare neck, Mark forced himself to relax. Donghyuck was asleep. He was asleep. It was just a coincidence. He wasn’t about to – 

Mark inched his head to the side, just to ensure Donghyuck was asleep. His eyes were closed, and so, so close. Donghyuck’s face was right there, his head rested half on Mark’s pillow, half on Mark’s shoulder.

Mark traced Donghyuck’s features, relaxed in sleep, wondering how it felt to never be able to see your own face, though your face would always be the same. His gaze rose to the stripe of sunlight from the part of the window uncovered by the drawn curtains. It would fall lower and lower on the distant wall as the hours passed and the day wore on. It probably wouldn’t ever fall low enough touch Donghyuck. Probably. 

Mark hesitated, a brief internal fight ensuing. He shifted, rolling his eyes as Donghyuck let out a sleepy incoherent sound of protest as his pillow moved. He turned to face Donghyuck, sleeping on his side, so that his back might catch any errant sun rays before they reached him.

When Mark awoke a second time, the bed was empty. Donghyuck was gone. He blinked, clearing his vision, then turned, looking over his shoulder at the window. He could still see light beyond the curtains. It was still daylight outside, though just barely, going by the rosy tint at the edges of the window. 

Mark shot upright. 

“Donghyuck,” he gasped, wondering where he could have gone, why his dumb ass had taken off while he could still be burned if he took a step outside. 

“Talking in your sleep?” 

A smug voice came from the other side of the room. Mark turned. Donghyuck stood in the open doorway that Mark could have sworn had been empty a moment before. 

“Well, I hope your dreams were sweet,” Donghyuck’s lip curled up.

He strolled into the room and Mark, feeling at once relieved and the stirring beginnings of aggravation, tracked his path. 

“What were you doing just now?” Mark’s eyes flicked to the open door. He trusted Donghyuck, but only an inch, no more.

“I wasn’t looking through your things, if that’s what you’re asking,” Donghyuck sounded amused, “I don’t care enough about what you own to do that.”

“I wasn’t – .”

Mark realized he’d hiked his shoulders up. He sighed, letting them fall. It was too early for this. Well, he thought, his eyes returning to the sunset outside. Too soon after waking, at least. 

He flicked the sheets off, and started for the bathroom.

“I‘m gonna take a shower. Don’t touch my shit.”

“Did you listen to a single word I s – ?“

The bathroom door shut, cutting off Donghyuck mid-word.

By the time Mark walked out of the bathroom, the sky outside the windows had gone dark and inky, and Donghyuck was nowhere to be found.

Mark stood before his opened drawers, dripping in a towel, staring at his clothes, though not really looking at them. His mind was elsewhere. He felt off, just slightly. And he refused to accept that explanation for it that kept coming to mind – that things had been left unsaid between he and Donghyuck. That they hadn’t quite managed to settle back into their usual, and that _ that _was quite unsettling to consider, after a night spent making out, and a day spent sharing a bed. 

It was nightfall and Mark had just awoken. He was full of agitation, undeserved and unyielding. He had nothing better to do, and he hadn’t slayed in awhile. The itch was there. 

He packed a stake, his silver plated pocket knife, and slung a cross necklace around his neck. The thin metal chain felt worlds away from the thick warmth of the leather pet collar, but he was still brought back to strapping the collar on the first time, just for a moment. Mark set his jaw, turned from his mirror, and started for the door. 

He’d hit up some of the classic haunts. Places he knew vampires were bound to show up eventually, places he’d slayed before. He needed to be sure he’d find one. 

Mark took familiar turns and led his bike down familiar streets, heading towards the bar without much more than gut instinct guiding him. The bar wasn’t the only place he knew vampires frequented, and it was a little slower, a little harder to separate a vampire from the rest. It wasn’t the ideal place. It had been where he met Donghyuck, too, though he considered that basically a non-factor.

A vampire haunt stake-out involved an ounce of bravery and a tonne of patience. Mark sat obscured in a doorway diagonally facing the bar, figuring it was too soon since he’d last showed his face there to do it again. He was fresh in the minds of the vampires, a human who showed up right before one of their regulars vanished off the face of the earth. He’d wait, this time. 

He’d grabbed himself a handful of candies from the plastic box at the check-out of the convenience store where he’d refreshed his first-aid kit. A roll of bandages, some cartoon band-aids that were thirty cents cheaper than the real kind, and a tube of neosporin. He was all set. He sucked on a lollipop – watermelon, a light red that was sure to stain his lips – and took to sharpening the tip of his stake with his pocketknife as he waited. 

He’d moved beyond sharpening. He was carving out a symbol in the base of the stake, a rough etching of a sun, rays and all. It might have been the dead of night, but the sun was on his mind. 

He’d finished half the rays when movement in the bar’s entrance caught his eye. A vampire, all alone. Mark narrowed his eyes, lowering his knife, shifting the lollipop in his mouth from one cheek to the other. The vampire was staggering, somewhat. Blooddrunk. He’d just fed. In Mark’s experience, that had a fifty-fifty chance of making the vampire easier prey, or impossible to kill. This guy looked like one of the former. 

Mark snagged the lollipop stick from his lips and set it down on the stoop where he’d hidden away. He grinned as he pushed up, and took after the vampire, softening his steps. If the guy had drunk enough blood, Mark’s precautions wouldn’t be necessary, but he had to be careful not to alert the vampires within the bar.

Mark followed him half a block behind then, when he spotted a dark alleyway in the vampire’s winding path, he picked up the pace. As his feet hit the pavement, ever light, ever hard to detect, his heart beat faster. His breaths started coming short and shallow, adrenaline sharpening his vision, dulling his hearing. He ended up having to run the last few steps, but he caught up in time to take the vampire by surprise, half tackling him into the alleyway. 

“What the – “

“ – Hey,” Mark said, pressing his forearm against the vampire’s sternum, forcing him against the brick wall behind him, “Show me your teeth.”

The vampire’s face was in shadows. He didn’t do anything more than part his lips, not wide enough to see his fangs. And then he was pushing forward, collapsing Mark’s arm with brute strength that was unencumbered by his drunkenness. 

Mark reacted quick, curling his fingers into a fist, bringing his fist forward, punching the vampire’s face with enough force to snap his head back. With the vampire weakened, Mark was able to press him back against the brick wall again. His knuckles stung, and his fingers ached, but the smudge of blood on the vampire’s lips was too dark to have been a result of Mark’s skin bursting open. 

Mark’s heart was still pounding, staring a predator in the eyes. He reached down and slipped the stake from his belt. 

With his free hand, he pressed the tip of the stake to the vampire’s chest. The vampire looked down, alarm flashing across his features.

“Show me. Your teeth,” Mark repeated. 

The vampire bared his teeth with a feeble hiss. Mark exhaled, as a pair of wicked fangs stained with tar-black blood flashed in the moonless night. He normally wouldn’t drag these kinds of things out. He wasn’t a sadist. He wasn’t like them. 

But it made him feel better, when he knew what they’d done. It made slaying feel alright. His eyes flicked up, “Tell me about the human you fed on.”

The vampire’s head jerked forward, snapping his teeth, and Mark met the lunge, pressing him harder against the brick wall.

“A woman? Or are you more inclined towards men?”

“A _ boy,_” the vampire wheezed, “Just like you.” 

It seemed the angrier he got, the more strained his voice became. The less he passed for human, his features contorted in hatred, fury. Mark cocked his head.

“Did you kill him?”

At first, the vampire said nothing, his fangs bared, that animalistic, almost cat-like hiss escaping his lips. Then the vampire pursed his lips, and spat in Mark’s face. Mark flinched as the vampire’s spit splattered across his face, but he forced himself not to react. He exhaled, measured. 

“Did you kill him?” Mark asked again. The vampire’s hiss increased in volume. It made Mark’s hackles rise, that strange, unnatural sound. 

“If you don’t tell me,” Mark said, trying, failing to contain his agitation, “I’ll put this stake through your heart.”

“I killed him,” the vampire snapped, “I drank until he stopped whimpering, and then drank until his eyes closed, and his blood stopped pumping. I drank until he went cold – “

The vampire let out a small, stunned ‘Oh’, as the tip of the stake pierced his skin. His face went slack, the last expression he made before Mark pressed on the base of the stake, right on the sun, with the heel of his palm, plunging it into his chest and through his heart.

Mark held his breath until the light left the vampire’s eyes, until he exhaled one last breath, a death rattle that reeked of pennies, of the metallic tang of blood. Thick, viscous liquid seeped down the hilt of the stake. It wasn’t any warmer than room temperature. Mark didn’t realize the vampire’s blood had coated his hand until he felt a trickle of blood down his forearm.

Immediately, he stepped back, drawing out the stake, letting the vampire slump against the alleyway wall and collapse. 

Come sunrise, his body would be ashes, and his clothes would be dust. Nothing would be left of him, not a trace. Seeing gold glint on the vampire’s neck, Mark crouched down. He thought of sunlight, of it washing the gold away along with its owner. He wiped his bloody hand off on his shirt as best as he was able, then he grasped the necklace. He suppressed shivers as his fingers brushed against cold flesh before catching on cold metal. He took the necklace, and slipped it in his pocket alongside the candy and band-aids before heading out.

..

“Why are you here?” Mark asked, tired beyond belief, bewildered, as he walked through his front door to see Donghyuck perched on a window sill, nursing a glass of wine. Mark blinked. He wasn’t aware he had wine. Or wine glasses. He glanced up at Donghyuck’s face. Nothing about this made sense.

“Why are you covered in blood?” Donghyuck asked, tone measured, face pinched.

Mark sighed. He walked into the apartment, shut the door behind him. He shucked off his jacket, emptying its pockets before wadding it up, tossing it in the general direction of his washing bathroom. He knew it’d require some careful rinsing and soaking to get the blood out. One of the worst parts of the slaying, really.

“Don’t worry. It’s not mine,” he said. Then, because he couldn’t be entirely sure and he wanted to cover his bases, “Probably.”

Donghyuck rose from the window sill, setting the wine down where he’d been sitting. He drew closer, his nose twitching as he sniffed the air. His expression was difficult to read. He’d been sitting in near darkness, only the dim yellow light of a single lamp turned on.

“Yes,” he said, his voice detectably breathless as he drew nearer, “You’re not – It’s not yours. It’s not even human.”

He looked troubled.

“What did you do?”

Mark wasn’t feeling patient enough to deal with Donghyuck’s questions and distrust. 

“I was bored,” he already had the gold necklace in his hands from emptying his jacket pockets and, without much of a thought, he reached forward and pressed it into Donghyuck’s grasp, “Got you a present.”

“…Mark.”

Mark kept walking. One quick rinse in the shower, he thought, and then he could collapse onto his bed and sleep until morning, until he had to drag himself to work before Johnny noticed he’d taken more than a day off.

Mark had heard Donghyuck’s footsteps behind him, following him, so he wasn’t entirely shocked at hearing the knock on the bathroom door just as he turned the knob on the shower. He stepped under the lukewarm spray, willing it to warm faster. He wouldn’t feel fully clean until the water was scalding, until the mere water droplets were enough to turn his skin red. 

“Mark, we need to talk. Did you just go slaying? Do you even realize how - how... foolhardy that was?”

Donghyuck’s voice was muffled through the sound of water pattering against Mark’s skin, through the door. 

Mark sighed. 

“Door’s unlocked. Come in if you’re so desperate to chat,” he shouted, then, in an undertone, “_ ‘Foolhardy’ _… what the fuck.”

He had time enough after he’d shouted the invitation that he thought Donghyuck would never open the door. He internally shrugged, and ducked his head under the by-then-hot water. He gasped, involuntary, as the burning water struck his sensitive skin. 

“I’m not looking,” he heard, louder, no longer encumbered by wood and plaster.

Mark laughed, to his own surprise, “I really don’t give a shit.”

Quiet, for a moment. Mark drew his head out of the hot spray of water, slicking his hair off his brows so the strands wouldn’t drip into his eyes. Through the steamed glass, he could see Donghyuck’s silhouette. He was standing, awkward, in the middle of the bathroom.

“Well,” he said, his voice just as awkward as his posture, “You should. Give a – shit, I mean. You slayed a vampire, right?”

Mark wasn’t sure he was hearing Donghyuck correctly. It was so rare that the vampire was anything less than completely self assured.

Shower still running, he opened the shower door to confirm what he thought he had heard. Donghyuck’s gaze was directed at the framed painting that Mark had gotten for a dollar in a garage sale, a strange looking flower that Mark was completely sure didn’t exist in reality. His jaw looked tight, and his eyes were tense.

“I did,” Mark said, “Is that why you’re so uncomfortable?”

Donghyuck’s gaze fell down. His lips parted, the small hitching breath from them so loud in the room, vacant of any noise save the running water. 

“No,” he said, after a long moment, quiet. His gaze was so focused on Mark’s own, so honed in, never straying. Donghyuck’s nostrils flared.

“Oh,” Mark exhaled. He didn’t know what to do with that. The steam that was quickly escaping from the shower clouded the bathroom mirror, obscuring his reflection, hiding Donghyuck’s lack of reflection.

Mark opened the shower door wider, straightening. He was beyond caring about his decency, not then, especially not with Donghyuck.

“Are you mad at me?” he asked, purely out of curiosity. 

“Yes,” Donghyuck answered, his voice pitched differently, lower. Then, “You still have his blood on you.”

Mark was having trouble following. He couldn’t make sense of Donghyuck, not then, not ever. Why did it matter to him at all, as long as Mark wasn’t mucking up their plans by going and getting himself hurt? Mark was fine, and the vampire was taken care of. He was so impossible, so frustrating. 

His skin shone with the steam from the shower. His brows were drawn low above his tense gaze that Mark could almost mistake for concern. Mark took a step back, leaving a space in the shower.

“Then come help me,” he said, breathless, scarcely believing what he was saying. 

Even harder to believe, Donghyuck stilled for a moment, then obeyed. He didn’t strip all the way, not quite. Mark watched, wondering if he ought to look away, unable to, as Donghyuck toed his shoes off. He pushed down his pants, stepped out of them. His shirt, a fine, light material much like the shirt Mark had worn the day before, fell to the tops of his thighs. As he stepped forward, into the shower, each water droplet that soaked it served to create a spot of sheerness, quickly joined by another, another, another. Until the wet spots outnumbered the dry patches, and Donghyuck’s shirt clung to his skin. 

“Hand me the soap,” Donghyuck’s voice was quiet, his eyes locked on Mark’s.

Mark slipped the soap into his hands, along with the washcloth he’d been intending to use. Already, most of Donghyuck’s hair was soaked, rivulets of water tracing paths down his skin, over the contours of his face. They ran rivers down the flushed, rosy bruises on Donghyuck's neck, the hickeys Mark had left on his skin.

Donghyuck began with Mark’s hand, the one that had held the stake. Mark hadn’t even realized there had been blood on it. Carefully, Donghyuck sloughed soapy, frothy water between Mark’s fingers. Gently, he scrubbed around the beds of his nails with the washcloth. Mark watched Donghyuck, as Donghyuck watched him. He was taken aback by the readiness with which Donghyuck had stepped forward, how easily he’d agreed. How carefully he was working then, to clean the vampire’s blood from Mark’s skin.

Mark gasped in a breath, realizing that then, up until that moment, he’d been holding his breath, afraid to even breathe and break the moment. Donghyuck glanced up, looking at Mark from under lashes, the furthest darkest strands of which were clumped with condensation.

They held eye contact, Donghyuck with Mark’s hand in a gentle grasp. His hand was cold, where Mark’s was warm, where the water was scalding. Holding Mark’s gaze, Donghyuck dropped his hand. He moved forward an increment, close enough to leave only a small gap of inches between them. 

Mark glanced away, down, as Donghyuck began to scrub his chest. 

“I’d always wondered what it was that you smelled of,” Donghyuck started to speak, drawing Mark’s eyes up again. The corner of Donghyuck’s lip had lifted, a trace of a smile, “Beneath the engine grease and the adrenaline, I mean.”

Mark blinked. He knew Donghyuck’s sense of smell was good. He hadn’t known how good, though.

“At first, I thought it was smoke, or tea. But that wasn’t quite right,” Donghyuck lifted the bar of soap up. Mark could feel bubbly water dripping down his chest, down his skin, “I think I figured it out. It’s evergreen, isn’t it?”

Donghyuck pushed the soapy washcloth up Mark’s skin, up from his chest, beyond his collarbone, to his shoulders. He drew closer, as he cleaned where Mark was sure no drops of blood could have reached. 

Mark’s breath hitched, as Donghyuck’s lips passed by his. This was torture, he was sure of it. Donghyuck’s chest pressed to his own as Donghyuck reached back, and Mark felt heady, his thoughts swimming in steam and heat. 

Mark raised his hand, thinking of Donghyuck’s mouth, so close that if he just turned, if he just looked at Mark – Mark grasped Donghyuck’s wrist, stilling his efforts. 

“Donghyuck…” he started, his tongue thick. He willed Donghyuck to turn, to look at him, to kiss him. 

“I’m not going to forbid you from slaying while we’re partnered,” Donghyuck said abruptly, stiffly. His brusque tone was more jarring than a slap to the face. Mark stared at him, confused, as he drew back from Mark. 

“I’m going to ask you not to do that again, though. If you had been recognized as my pet, and if you had allowed the vampire to escape, that would be it. Our cover would be blown. I’d never get my revenge.”

Mark’s lips parted. It was like a switch had flipped. He was getting so fucking tired of this, of thinking he was finally getting somewhere, only for the steel gates to be slammed in his face.

“That’s all I care about right now, Mark,” Donghyuck continued, and once again, Mark felt as though he’d been slapped in the face. All at once, all of his comfort, all of his ease, waned. He felt too naked, too bare. Donghyuck held his gaze, “I hope you understand how much keeping our cover safe means to me.”

“Yes,” Mark said, dully, “I understand.”

A hesitation, a moment. Donghyuck drew back. He looked as though he’d been caught in a rainstorm, sopping wet, cautious expression on his face. 

“Good,” he said, and then Mark could do nothing but stand there and act as though he was unaffected as Donghyuck turned his attention to Mark’s face. 

Donghyuck’s face was right in front of his own, his gaze unreadable as he pressed the washcloth into Mark’s skin. Mark regretted the meticulous care with which Donghyuck was cleaning him. This was torturous. Eventually, he figured out it was best if he closed his eyes, and waited for it to be over.

When Mark offered to loan Donghyuck a clean, dry shirt, he accepted with mirrored stiffness. He left, not long before the sunrise, leaving a half-drunk glass of wine behind on the windowsill, and a sense of utter confusion in Mark. 

As he took a seat on his bed, still unmade from the day before, he realized that Donghyuck had never so much as offered an explanation as to why he’d been in Mark’s apartment. Mark sighed, dropping his head into his hand. Donghyuck had pushed his way into every aspect of Mark’s life, starting with taking up permanent residence in his thoughts, and then his evenings, and now even his home, his bed.


	4. instinctive

“Are you up for a challenge?” 

He didn’t so much as make a whisper of noise before he’d spoken. Mark reacted on sheer instinct, a result of years of his fight or flight instinct being diverted solely towards a fight response. He spun on his heel, whirling around as he raised his hand. He was prepared either to hold the threat in place or push it away, whatever the situation required. 

Mark paused upon seeing Donghyuck there, standing in his kitchen. Bemused, he looked at Mark. Just behind him, Mark’s front door slipped close. 

“Uh,” Mark started, still frozen in place, his limbs posed to lash out, his muscles taut. 

Donghyuck shifted his weight and withdrew a small bundle of shining, dark fabric from somewhere within his long coat. Mark watched with dawning horror as Donghyuck pinched a corner of the fabric bundle, letting it unfurl.

“Jesus Christ,” Mark said. His hands fell limp to his sides, “Where’s the rest of it?”

Donghyuck’s lips parted into a smirk that displayed both of his fangs, and Mark’s horror started to fade. Mostly, he felt resigned. He wasn’t going to protest. Not this time. His primary concern was figuring out how the hell he’d be able to hide a weapon in just those tiny silk shorts.

“Jesus Christ,” he exhaled, heavy. He reached forward to snatch the shorts from Donghyuck’s hands. 

“Those aren’t the challenge, by the way,” Donghyuck said, and Mark looked up in disbelief. 

Donghyuck’s smile had gone smaller, only one tip of one fang visible. His brows had drawn low above his eyes. His expression wasn’t quite worry, but it was a close enough thing that all of Mark’s concerns about the shorts faded away. 

“...Huh,” Mark replied, trying to contain his skepticism, wondering what could possibly be more challenging.

“No more games. You’ve already met the tolerable vampires.”

Mark opened his mouth to make a smart comment about those vampires being far from tolerable (the blond headed one came to mind immediately), but Donghyuck’s eyes glinted, sharp, and he thought it best to close his mouth again. He cleared his throat. 

Donghyuck cocked a brow and continued, “Tonight, we’re going to talk to the less friendly ones.” 

Wanting to waste no time, they went immediately to Mark’s bike. En route, Donghyuck explained that they were going to have to convince some men who wouldn’t trust him if he told them the night sky was black that Mark was nothing more than his harmless pet. It was crucial, he said. The “less friendly” vampires needed to drop their guard around the both of them if they were to have a chance of meeting them outside of a ball, in isolation, where Mark might actually have a chance to slay them. 

Mark, of course, waited to put on the shorts. There was no way in hell he’d drive through the city streets with just those on.

They weren’t headed to Ten’s mansion on the outskirts of town. Instead, Donghyuck directed Mark deeper and deeper into the city, past streets teeming with bargoers and revelers, past girls in towering heels and tiny dresses ambling in packs from club to club. 

They went to the quietest part of the club district, the cusp between it and the business district with its towering skyscrapers, dead and dark with nightfall. 

After parking his bike a block from where Donghyuck indicated the club was located, Mark changed behind a brick-wall building. Shivering, he shucked his layers of flannel and jeans for the shorts. All the while, Donghyuck gave him a decent amount of space, standing still, facing away at the edge of the building.

“Oh, shit,” Mark hissed, the moment he’d pulled the shorts on. 

He shuffled from foot to foot, trying to coax some blood flow into his toes, which were already growing numb, “Shit, shit, shit.” 

“Too tight?” Donghyuck asked, innocent. His exhalations were visible as clouds in the chilled night air. 

Mark scowled. He crossed the space between them and reached out his hand. 

“Just give me the collar so we can go inside.”

Donghyuck turned, clouds trailing from his lips. He was quiet, unmoving. His face was in shadows, but Mark caught the glint of his eye as his gaze travelled down. Mark had already felt chills before but, at that moment, it struck him just how exposed he was, how naked, how cold. He wished to bring his arms up, cross them over his bare chest. Instead, he curled in his fingers, uncurled them. He raised his palm.

“C’mon, man. It’s cold.”

“I can see that,” Donghyuck said, light. It took Mark a moment. When he glanced down to confirm and saw that his nipples had indeed hardened in the chilled night air, his face immediately grew warmer. 

Silently, Mark raised his other hand and crossed it over his chest. Keeping his gaze down, he gritted out, “Collar. Please.”

But when Mark felt silk brush against his palm, he had to raise his eyes. Donghyuck hadn’t given him the leather dog collar. Instead, he’d opted for a length of black silk, the same fabric as Mark’s shorts. 

Mark’s brows drew together. He wondered what had happened to the other one, and why Donghyuck had decided to replace it with silk. He looked at Donghyuck, but Donghyuck’s shadowed expression held no answers. Mark set his jaw, then turned away. He attempted to tie the silk ribbon himself. Donghyuck allowed him to struggle by himself for long seconds, before he let out a tired sigh.

“Here,” he said, rough, and Mark froze, as Donghyuck’s cold fingers brushed against his own. Mark withdrew his hands as he felt the silk first slip against his goosebumped skin, loose before being pulled taut. Mark exhaled a cloud of breath. Having nothing else to do with his hands as Donghyuck tied the ribbon, Mark again crossed his arms over his bare chest. 

He wasn’t thinking about Donghyuck, and what Donghyuck was doing because, if he did, he didn’t know where those thoughts would lead. 

“...and this is my pet.”

Mark kept his head bowed as he waited for an indication from the vampire that it was alright to raise his gaze. He was learning. Slowly, incrementally, but he was learning.

“Are those tattoos?”

Mark had gotten a few comments on them so far, all with varying degrees of judgement. He surmised that pets didn’t generally have tattoos on their arms, ribs, and back as he did, put on full display with him in just his shorts.

“He got them done before we met,” Donghyuck said, conversational. 

Then, sudden, unexpected, Donghyuck laid his hand on Mark’s back, between his shoulder blades. His palm was cool against Mark’s heated skin, his touch conspicuous against the cross Mark had gotten tattooed in the spot only a few months into his slaying. 

It had taken meeting Donghyuck for Mark to realize the cross tattoo was useful for nothing more than aesthetic. He, and any other vampire, could touch it without any adverse effects. Instead, Mark found that he was the one who had to contain his reaction. He forced his thoughts away from pondering the feel of Donghyuck’s palm in an effort to suppress his shivers. 

“I like them,” Donghyuck said. His tone was still light, but there was a note of challenge there. 

Mark silently begged him to move his hand from Mark’s back already, before the prolonged contact made a conspicuous flush rise to his cheeks.

The vampire sniffed, “He’s strange. But, then, your pets have always been strange.”

Mark didn’t have to look at Donghyuck to know that he’d reacted. It would have been unreadable in his expression, but he’d tensed at Mark’s side. And, a moment later, his hand slipped from Mark’s back.

After they left that vampire, Donghyuck leaned in close. As he spoke in a voice barely audible above the pulsing music in the club, his lips brushed against the crest of Mark’s ear, “I’ve decided that he should be one of the first you kill.”

“Oh, him? Sweet,” Mark replied, with his first smile all night. He glanced over his shoulder, taking in his target. 

He was tall, thin, with sallow skin and sunken cheeks. He looked half a corpse already, and his pet was a thin, sickly looking woman with matching sallow skin. Mark’s smile stiffened. He wondered what would happen to her when he slayed the vampire, whether she’d be pleased, whether she’d feel free.

“Mark – “ Donghyuck started, a hushed warning that perked Mark’s ears up. Before he had the chance to turn back to look at Donghyuck and voice his questions, though, another voice resounded.

“So the rumors were true after all.” 

The speaker, coming from their side, possessed a high pitched, sensual voice that set the hair at the back of Mark’s neck standing on end. Mark turned. 

“Donghyuck,” the man spoke again, “I’m pleased that. you’ve made your return.”

His blond hair was pale, the dingy color of dishwater, and long, the stands falling well past his collarbones. His pupils were dark and wide enough to almost overtake any white in his eyes. The vampire was strikingly inhuman. Just looking in his eyes for a few seconds was enough to leave Mark’s heart racing. He dropped his gaze, wondering what to do, and why Donghyuck wasn’t moving.

“Cain,” Donghyuck’s voice betrayed nothing, perfectly unaffected. 

“Come closer, please. It’s been so long since I’ve seen your face.”

Donghyuck stayed quiet as conversation carried on all around them. Mark chanced a look at him. As if sensing his gaze, Donghyuck looked to him. His mouth was tight, but there were no other visible indicators of his feelings on the vampire in front them.

“It has been awhile, hasn’t it?” he said, more to Mark than to the vampire. 

They passed through crossing pets and vampires, walking over to the booth where the vampire was. Beside him sat a pair of pets, a girl with dark hair and wide, wide eyes, and a boy who could easily be her twin, with a gaze just as haunting. 

The vampire stood up from the booth’s velvet couch, and Mark was reminded that he ought not to be looking directly at him. He quickly directed his gaze down. 

Donghyuck cleared his throat. When he spoke, his prior hesitation seemed like a momentary blip, forgotten. His voice was warm and smooth, matching the vampire’s, “I’m glad to be back.” 

Mark wished he could lay eyes on Donghyuck. He’d managed to switch his tone up completely. Mark wondered at his expression, how he might have altered it to sell their cover. 

“It was so lonely staying out of society as long as I… did…” Donghyuck’s voice trailed off, ending uncertain. 

Mark heard footsteps and sensed a large figure drawing closer. 

“I can’t even imagine,” the vampire said, his voice loud, near. Mark stiffened. He resisted the urge to glance up, though the vampire had to be right in front of him.

Mark’s breath was stolen from his lungs, as a foreign hand reached forward. His gaze raised, just in time to watch as the vampire took a loose strand of the black silk collar in between his pale fingers. Mark’s heart skipped a beat, helpless to do anything but gaze on as the vampire toyed with his collar. His nails were long, unnaturally sharp. They were far too close to Mark’s neck for his liking. 

Donghyuck seemed to be speechless. He said nothing, as the vampire spoke.

“Your pet’s scent is quite distinctive.”

Mark glanced to the side, to Donghyuck. Donghyuck was standing as still as a statue, looking at the vampire with poorly concealed distaste. Quickly, Mark glanced back to the vampire. He felt mixed emotions, relief and discomfort alike, as he saw the vampire was more invested in him and his collar than in Donghyuck’s poor acting.

The vampire looked up. His eyes, so wholly black they could have been ink pools, met Mark’s.

“You don’t smell of your master at all.”

His fangs, Mark thought, with creeping unease, were the longest Mark had ever seen. His mouth seemed so red in comparison to their bleached, stark-white appearance. Mark was so caught up on them that it took him a moment to realize he was being spoken to. The vampire was addressing him directly, his voice pitched low, as he’d spoken for Mark alone. 

“I…” he managed, no more than a whisper, quickly snuffed out as his thoughts failed him. 

How was he meant to explain that away? Of course he didn’t smell like Donghyuck. Donghyuck seemed to go out of his way to avoid touching him whenever they were alone, whenever they didn’t have to play master and pet for a vampire audience. Mark directed a desperate thought Donghyck’s way – _please, _he thought, please be working on an explanation. 

The vampire’s mouth quirked into a grin that didn’t reach his eyes. Mark forced himself to stand still. He forced himself to do nothing, as the vampire looped one of the collar’s loose strands around his finger, and tugged, pulling it loose. The silk slipped from Mark’s neck. Any moment now, he thought. Any moment and Donghyuck would come up with something to get them out of the situation without resorting to force and blowing their cover. He’d always seemed to find a way out before, even in cases when Mark himself hadn’t picked up on the threat. 

“Cain,” Donghyuck’s voice no longer hid his displeasure. He’d spoken low, a warning that the vampire easily dismissed.

The vampire took Mark’s jaw into his hands, his touch ice cold. Callous, sudden enough to make Mark gasp in the unexpected sensation, he forced Mark to look to the side. After exposing Mark’s neck to the dim club lights, he sighed, as if pleased. Chills ran down Mark’s skin. Every fiber of his being was telling him to run, a flight response he hadn’t known he still retained. Any moment now, he thought again, though, with every repetition, he was beginning to feel more and more like an idiot for believing it. 

“He’s never even fed on you, has he, pet?” the vampire asked, his gaze on Mark’s neck. He traced down Mark’s neck with the side of his finger, “Your skin’s completely unscarred.”

“Take your hands off him, Cain,” Donghyuck spoke, his voice no more than a growl. It was so absurd that, if Mark wasn’t scared shitless, he might have laughed. It was still a polite request, no matter the tone it’d been spoken in. 

“How much for him?” 

The vampire, Cain, ignored Donghyuck. His sharp smile spread wider. His dark eyes glinted coolly as he looked up into Mark’s, “I’d love to be the first to feed on you.”

Mark curled his fingers into a fist, and exhaled. He’d been an idiot, really, to ever put as much trust in Donghyuck as he had. He started running through his options, something he could do to get himself out of this situation before the vampire attacked him. He couldn’t hit the vampire, he told himself. He couldn’t. If they wanted to salvage their cover at all, that was off the table. He _ so _wished to see the vampire’s head snap back as his fist collided with his face, though. 

“How would you taste, I wonder… How would you moan – ?”

Fuck it, Mark thought.

He didn’t punch him. He did, however, shift his weight, centering it low. Then, without giving the vampire any time to realize what was coming his way, Mark reached out and _ shoved _the vampire from him. He only used one hand. Not enough force to warrant how Cain stumbled back from him, clutching his chest where Mark had (barely) struck him.

From there, several things unfolded in quick succession.

Donghyuck let out a choked out sound, followed by a gasped, “Mark,” that led to Mark glancing to him in alarm. He was expecting Donghyuck to be angry, maybe. Upset with him, definitely. Instead of either of those, he saw fear on Donghyuck’s features. His face was drained of color, pallid.

Mark straightened, unsure and uneasy. 

“Pet,” came Cain’s growl, “You’ll pay for that.”

Donghyuck’s gaze flitted from Mark to Cain, shuttering, but imperfectly. Strain persisted around the corners of his eyes, fissures in the mask of his face.

“He didn’t know what he was doing,” Donghyuck said. His voice, though urgent, was measured, calm, belying the fear Mark had seen in his face. Unable to follow Donghyuck’s inexplicable shifts in mood, Mark glanced to Cain.

Cain had fury etched in his features. Behind him, the tiny pair of twins had drawn together. They’d turned their owlish eyes to Mark, watching him, unblinking. It was then, looking at their rapt gazes, that Mark began to grasp just how severely he’d fucked up. 

“Donghyuck, you’ve let your pet go astray again. This one will pay for it, the same as the last.”

And, _ shit, _that didn’t sound good. Mark’s eyes flicked up to the vampire. Oddly, he wasn’t as panicked as he could have been. Adrenaline thrummed through his veins, keeping his heart pounding, but his thoughts came more organized that ever, laser focused. 

Mark exhaled, his muscles tensed. Fighting Cain wasn’t an option here. The only way Mark took vampires on was when he had an advantage, when he had either the element of surprise on his side or when the vampire had just fed, and was blood drunk and stumbling, their senses dulled. 

All this, Mark thought in perhaps a matter of seconds. 

“You’re not his master. How was he supposed to respond to you?” Donghyuck uttered, his hushed voice dangerously calm, the tone that Mark knew held a tempest underneath it. 

He was still trying to talk this out. It was his only option, Mark supposed. He couldn’t exactly step in and stop Cain. He physically wasn’t able. 

It was the first thing Donghyuck had explained to Mark, when he first proposed they join forces. Vampires couldn’t harm other vampires. That meant only humans like Mark could slay the vampires that Donghyuck wanted killed. Or, as Mark was increasingly coming to realize, it meant that humans and pets were mostly there to serve as outlets for vampires’ brutality. 

“Shall we mete out the punishment right now?” Cain asked, a ghost of his former wicked grin returning to his face. He turned to the twin pets, “What sort of punishment does the pet deserve for raising a hand to a vampire?”

Around them, Mark realized, the conversation in the club had lowered in volume. Those in closest proximity to them had turned, allured by Cain’s theatrics, perhaps, or even Mark’s shove. 

He wished he could rewind time. He didn’t exactly regret defending himself, but things were getting sticky, fast. He didn’t know if it would even be possible for him to make a break for it in the crowded club, with their audience of dozens of vampires surrounding them, all of them no doubt invested in seeing him punished. 

“Hit him, as he hit you,” the girl whispered, her voice rattling, sickly.

“Beat him,” the boy added, heightened, pleased, as though he was enjoying what was unfolding.

“_Cain_, I’m asking you to reconsider,” Donghyuck’s voice broke, and it was then that Mark realized his desperation, “Please. He didn’t know.”

Cain whirled around, turning not to Donghyuck, but to Mark.

“I’ll feed on him. That’s merciful enough.”

Mark didn’t look to Donghyuck again, but he felt an odd sense of betrayal. Indignant, misplaced anger. A fat load of help all his pleading had done. Really, though, Mark was just angry at himself. He should have just taken it, he supposed. Cain was probably trying to rile him up. And he’d succeeded. 

The silence around them was so complete, so resolute. You could drop a pin and you’d hear it. It was unnatural, eerie. Everyone was watching.

“Mark,” Donghyuck began, hushed. 

He tried to grasp Mark’s wrist and Mark, feeling petulant, shook him off. Donghyuck didn’t try to touch him a second time. 

After another moment of hesitation, he said, “I’m sorry that I couldn’t do more.”

“Fuck you,” Mark muttered back, out of the corner of his mouth. 

_ Sorry, _he thought, his head spinning. God, whatever Cain had in store for Mark must have been awful if Donghyuck was apologizing to him. 

Cain grabbed Mark by the shoulder, wrenched him forward. The whispers started up again, delighted, entranced. Entertained. Mark felt sick. Fuck this, he thought. He ought to just punch Cain properly and split. Leave Donghyuck to fend for himself among the vampires and their sickly pets. Evidently, Donghyuck would do the same for him. But he couldn’t move. His feet felt stuck to the ground. His legs wouldn’t obey him, no matter how hard he willed himself to start running. 

Roughly, Cain grasped Mark’s jaw. He jerked Mark’s head aside, his grip near painful. Mark was reminded how much stronger vampires could be than the average human, than him, when they were exerting their strength. He finally broke through his paralysis, attempting to wrench free from Cain’s hold. The first attempt failed, Cain’s grip tightening to a vice on his jaw, and Mark had to swallow down a cry of pain. 

Mark jammed his eyes shut. He tried to catch his breath, to calm his heart. He tried to think of a way to fight, or a way out. He was coming up empty.

“Let me do it instead,” came Donghyuck’s voice, breathless, from behind Mark, “He’s my pet. I’ll discipline him.”

_ . . . Donghyuck . . . _

Cain’s breath smelled of blood. Fresh. By Donghyuck’s best guess, he’d fed only a few hours prior. He wasn’t hungry. He just wanted to terrorize Mark. He just wanted to hurt him. Donghyuck couldn’t let Cain hurt Mark. That had been the sole thought through his head, before he’d spoken, thoughtlessly blurting out the offer. 

In the silence that followed, he stood his ground. He forcibly calmed his breathing, as he caught sight of the line of Mark’s shoulders, tense and unnatural. A small part of Donghyuck wondered how much Mark hated him then, at that moment. 

Cain pulled away from Mark. As his fangs got farther from his neck, Donghyuck was able to breathe easier. The threat wasn’t gone, but it was less immediate. 

“You would do that, Donghyuck?” Cain asked. 

He was right to be skeptical. The last he’d known of Donghyuck, Donghyuck was swearing to Cain and every other vampire who’d helped him that they’d regret the day they ever harmed his pet.

Donghyuck set his jaw, and stepped forward. Over a hundred years had eclipsed since that day. The wound was no longer fresh, and Donghyuck’s pain was more bearable. He was calmer now when, a century ago, he would have been blinded by hurt at the mere reference to what had happened. This wasn’t a repetition of past events, no matter how Donghyuck’s body had instinctively reacted to seeing Mark in peril. He could act now, and he should. 

He could practically smell Mark’s fear dripping through his pores. He could read his anger, anger that no doubt directed at Donghyuck, in the tense line of his muscles. 

“Yes,” Donghyuck replied, not letting his mess of thoughts weaken his voice, “I’ve changed. I believe that pets need to learn where they belong. If you give me the chance… I’ll put him in his place.”

He was thinking on his toes, spinning a lie that would put more distance between Cain’s fangs and Mark’s neck. Whatever he might be forced to do to Mark would be nothing compared to what Cain would do to him. Cain’s pets tended to have a shelf life of weeks. He was one of the crueler ones among their kind, known to rip and tear through sinew and muscle, more beast than vampire. If he was allowed to feed on Mark… Donghyuck shut down that line of thought. He forced his expression to remain blank, as Cain held his gaze, and quiet moments passed. 

At last, Cain sighed, forlorn. He drew back from Mark, and Donghyuck felt awash with unexpected relief. 

“Pity. I would have liked to drink your blood, pet,” he said to Mark. 

Donghyuck saw Cain’s gaze skate over Mark’s body, following down his bare chest and exposed legs. He felt a flare of the fury he’d felt earlier, an echo of the utter sense of powerlessness that had gripped him as Cain had first been talking to Mark. 

Because Cain was a vampire, Donghyuck would never be able to give him the treatment he deserved. The only way for vampires to hurt other vampires was to target their pets and Donghyuck knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Cain had only targeted Mark because he belonged to Donghyuck. It was part of his wicked game, but Donghyuck couldn’t help but blame himself. Had Mark walked in on the arm of any other vampire, he would be safe. 

Donghyuck had allowed himself to be blinded, paralyzed in his anger and recollection of former times. He’d missed the signs of Mark’s growing frustration. He’d said nothing, as Mark reached out and struck Cain, dooming himself. 

“Something about you smells so… familiar. But Donghyuck, changed –” Cain looked up at Donghyuck, and Donghyuck was quick to conceal any lingering signs of anger that might have crossed his features “ – That’s something I have to see for myself.”

Cain released Mark, shoving him back, leaving Mark stumbling right into Donghyuck. 

Donghyuck felt nothing more than a brush of warmth as Mark collided with him. Then Mark darted forward, putting inches of space between them. He was hunched over, not even looking back at Donghyuck. 

Donghyuck was unsure what to say, or do. For once, Mark’s anger at him was completely justified. 

“Mark,” he ventured. 

He wanted to at least pretend he was doing this on his own terms, that this wasn’t the result of a last ditch effort to undo his mistake. But Mark wasn’t turning around. 

“Mark,” he repeated, “Look at me.”

He wanted Mark to understand. He needed him to understand, actually. That Donghyuck was doing this because the alternative meant greater harm for him. If Cain was the one who punished him, it would mean lasting injury, or perhaps death. 

Mark turned. His hair was mussed, the longest of the dark strands falling across his eyes. But his gaze was unmistakable. He looked at Donghyuck with nothing short of loathing on his face. He looked utterly betrayed, which Donghyuck could hardly fathom, the idea that Mark had trusted him to begin with. 

_ “Donghyuck’s going to drink his pet’s blood,” _ Donghyuck heard a distantly familiar whisper, to which another aristocratic voice replied, _ “Not _ our _ Donghyuck? Some other one?” _

“Hurry up,” Cain ordered, brusque, displeased. 

He was growing impatient. Donghyuck exhaled. He had to be careful how he did this. He couldn’t act too sympathetic towards Mark or the vampires around them, Cain in particular, wouldn’t be convinced that he’d changed. He couldn’t be cruel as he wished he could, though, not with Mark looking at him like that, as though he was despicable. 

Donghyuck extended a hand. 

“Don’t be scared,” he said, his voice as even as he could make it. His words had been loud enough for every eavesdropping vampire around to hear, but they had been spoken for Mark alone. 

Mark took his hand, though his gaze didn’t soften at all. His touch was warm. It felt burning in contrast to Donghyuck’s own. 

“I’m not scared,” Mark took a step closer, “I’m pissed off.”

Donghyuck carefully didn’t look down, where Mark’s body was still shaking, trembling. Humans. A mess of contradictions, of strong base emotions, of anger and hatred, and fear. Living hundreds of years dulled the emotions, took the raw edge off of them. Donghyuck probably didn’t even remember how it felt to feel as Mark did then.

“I’ll try to make this as painless as possible,” he said, hushed. 

He leaned in closer, hesitating as he neared enough to hear Mark’s heartbeat. It was drumming so quick. He must have been terrified but, to a vampire’s ears, his heartbeat was an alluring lull. Donghyuck’s eyes sought out Mark’s neck, searching for a prominent vein. 

“Pretend to faint,” Donghyuck suggested, his voice hoarse, “It’ll be over quicker.”

A pause. 

“I’m not fucking doing that,” Mark muttered. His voice sounded a touch softer though, some of the anger sapped from it. Maybe it had occurred to him why exactly Donghyuck had stepped forward to suck his blood. That it wasn’t some opportunistic thing. 

Donghyuck looked up, past his jaw, clenched tight. His cheeks were flushed red. Donghyuck exhaled, low. Humans didn’t know – when they were all wound up, their strong emotions sending their hearts pumping wildly, sending blood that turn their skin a bright rose – they didn’t know how striking they were. It was all Donghyuck could do to look away, and keep himself from staring forever. 

There were more than a few eyes on them. They weren’t just being watched by Cain and his pets. Donghyuck kept that in his mind. It helped keep him sane, and focused, as he turned his attention to Mark’s neck. It was free of the silk collar, bare. Donghyuck raised his hand to place it at the opposite side of Mark’s neck, at the juncture of his shoulder. Support, though he wasn’t sure whether it would be for Mark’s benefit, or his own. 

Cain was probably expecting brutality. The other clubgoers would have welcomed blood spilled. Donghyuck couldn’t, though. Not if he ever wanted to look Mark in the eyes again.

He leaned in close, tantalizing distance from the thrumming vein that stood prominent in Mark’s neck. Mark was so, so warm. Donghyuck wanted to wrap himself up in him, to sink his teeth into his skin. Donghyuck heard Mark’s breath hitch, as his lips brushed against the vein. Cain had been right. He smelled so strongly of himself, not a hint of another. There wasn’t a whiff of Donghyuck’s own scent amidst the smells of engine grease, of cotton shirts and rich aftershave, of flannel and pine forests. 

“Damn it. Just do it already,” Mark exhaled. 

With his hushed order, Donghyuck had no other reason to hesitate. He opened his mouth a bare amount, and then bit down with just enough force to break skin.

He couldn’t help but moan as the first taste of blood hit his tongue. Distantly, he was aware that his moan was matched by a gasp from Mark. 

It had been so long since he’d drunk fresh blood. For decades now, he’d subsisted off of bloodpacks pilfered from hospitals or, if he was really desperate, animals’ blood from the butcher’s. 

Mark grasped Donghyuck’s arm as he sucked. He was moving as gently as he was able, though every fiber of his being was screaming at him to give in to his impulses, to get greedy, to rip and tear, anything to devour his blood faster. 

As Donghyuck lapped up the blood that trickled from the twin puncture wounds in his neck, Mark began to make soft, hardly perceptible sounds. Little sighs, hitching breaths that only served to make him taste sweeter. 

Donghyuck slipped his hand down Mark’s back, down his bare skin, pulling him closer to better access his neck. Distantly, he was aware of Cain prowling around them, watching. Of the pets, their dead eyes trained on them. He could feel the vampires in the club, envying him, salivating as the metallic scent of Mark’s blood filled the air.

Feeding was a heady feeling, more invigorating than any drug or drink. Donghyuck could feel his focus slipping, the more he drank, the longer it went on. Events blurred together. Mark clung to him, though he was awake. He was conscious, whispering nonsense words in Donghyuck’s ear. Donghyuck willed him to faint, with what little remained of his coherent thoughts. The longer Mark stayed upright, the longer Donghyuck was left to go on, the more his control would slip. He was already breathless, sucking harder than he ought to, wrenching Mark closer, closer, until Mark’s leg slipped between his own. 

Conversation around them grew louder, as people grew tired of the lack of obvious bloodshed, or distracted by their own pets, and moved on. Still, Donghyuck sucked. The rest of the world was dulled. It was just he and Mark, the beat of Mark’s heart on his tongue, quick and strong and in tune with his own. Mark clutched at the back of Donghyuck’s coat, grappling for contact.

“Okay,” he said, in such a soft voice that it didn’t register for Donghyuck, not at first.

“Okay, that’s – that’s enough,” he said. It was still impossibly soft, but the tone, broken, broke through the cottony feeling that had been clouding Donghyuck’s senses. He gasped, pulled back. 

“...thank you,” Mark continued, fractured.

Donghyuck watched a trickle of blood, deep crimson, drip from the lower puncture. It traced a slow path down Mark’s neck, its scent sharp and alluring. Drawn in, Donghyuck pressed his tongue to the trickle, and licked up.

“_Hey_,” Mark’s voice was lighter. He didn’t sound angry at all, not with Donghyuck, not anymore. Donghyuck blinked as, with his mounting confusion, more of the hazy feeling clouding his thoughts faded. He looked up at Mark again, unsure. 

“Bad vampire,” Mark wagged a finger in front of Donghyuck’s face. It was annoying – the finger. Distracting. It was in the way.

Donghyuck withdrew his hand from Mark’s neck to clasp it around Mark’s wrist. He lowered it, and leaned in again. This time, he wasn’t setting out to suck Mark’s blood, but to kiss him. His blood had tasted sweet, but Donghyuck knew his mouth tasted sweeter. He felt heady, blood drunk. He was imbued with a sense of entitlement, the desire to take what you wanted that only came after feeding. And there was nothing he wanted more in that moment than to kiss Mark.

He managed to just make momentary contact with Mark’s lips before Mark drew back. 

“Whoa,” he said. He was smiling. Smiling _ at _Donghyuck, his eyes heavy-lidded, his lips flushed. An odd, but not unwelcome sight, “Bad idea. You’re supposed to be punishing me.”

Oh, right. 

Donghyuck turned with regret away from Mark. He was still tangled up in him, but it was too much effort to consider detangling himself and, besides, Mark was warm. And he smelled nice. And his skin was soft. 

“Was that suitable, Cain?” Donghyuck asked, speaking carefully, distinctly.

Sometime in the indeterminable period in which Donghyuck had had better things to focus on, Cain had moved. He was sitting in between his pets. The boy was on his lap, his fine features drawn, his owlish eyes closed. Cain’s head was bowed over his neck, bright red crimson bubbling up around his lips.

“Ah,” Donghyuck turned to Mark, “He’s busy.”  
Mark wasn’t looking anywhere near Cain. He was looking at Donghyuck like he’d told a wildly amusing joke that Mark wasn’t quite sure it was appropriate to laugh at. 

Donghyuck didn’t like not being in on the joke. He stuck out his bottom lip.

“Can we go back to what we were just doing?”

“Uh,” Mark blinked, slow. He pulled back from Donghyuck to look around and Donghyuck only just withheld an impatient whine. 

“Is there someplace in this club with less vampires?” 

Donghyuck shrugged. He leaned in closer, and began nosing at Mark’s jaw. The scent of blood was thick, but not overpowering. It wasn’t as intoxicating as Mark’s normal scent. 

“We should – ah,” Mark cut off, as Donghyuck pressed a kiss to the underside of his jaw, “I mean we should really – Donghyuck,” Mark said, choked, as Donghyuck darted out his tongue to taste his skin. It was warm, salty, “Oh my God. Let’s just – my apartment.”

“Too far,” Donghyuck protested in a murmur against his skin. 

He dropped his hand and, as a result of the lack of space between he and Mark, his hand brushed against Mark’s bare chest. Mark hissed, a curious sound that intrigued Donghyuck. It wasn’t a hiss of pain. Wanting to hear the noise again, Donghyuck stalled his hand, brought it back up. 

“Huh,” he said, as the back of his fingers brushed against Mark’s nipple. It was hardened, the same as it had been when Donghyuck had teased Mark in the frigid alleyway before they’d entered the club. 

Mark inhaled as Donghyuck touched him, the intake of breath sharp and sudden. Donghyuck smiled, pulling back from Mark’s neck to glance down as he brushed his thumb, deliberate, teasing, over it once more. If he was being honest with himself, Donghyuck had been thinking of doing that from the moment Mark had walked up to him in the alleyway. 

“Donghyuck,” Mark exhaled, breathless, before grabbing Donghyuck’s hand.

Donghyuck looked up. His eyelids felt heavy. 

“You didn’t like that?” he asked. Gauging Mark’s expression proved to be difficult in the dark of the club, with the heat of Mark all along his front, distracting.

Mark’s eyes reflected what little light there was. The lights in them seemed to dance as his eyes flicked over Donghyuck’s face, as a moment of silence followed Donghyuck’s question. But then, Mark angled in, pressing close. 

“That’s not it,” Mark said, his words hot on Donghyuck’s ear. 

Donghyuck had tried to hold his breath but, as Mark leaned in close, his lungs began to burn and he had to breathe in. He could smell Mark, the sweat, the blood, his soap and shampoo. And underneath it all, thick, so heavy that it was difficult to pick up amongst the other scents, was arousal. Donghyuck blinked as he noticed the heady, intoxicating scent.

“I just don’t like that they’re watching.”

Mark slipped his hand up, no longer holding Donghyuck still, but pressing his hand to Mark’s chest. He’d angled himself, Donghyuck noted, so that it was impossible to see Donghyuck’s hand. He didn’t have an issue with Donghyuck touching him like this, Donghyuck realized, like a heady rush. He wanted it, just not under the other vampires’ eyes. 

“They wouldn’t think it’s strange,” Donghyuck exhaled, the slight movement enough to bring his cheek in contact with Mark’s. Keeping his hand flat against Mark’s chest, he slipped it up so that Mark’s nipple was between his fingers. Donghyuck turned his head, angling for Mark’s lips, “This is what happens after a vampire feeds on his pet. We have fun.”

As Donghyuck’s lips brushed against Mark’s, he heard a slight intake of breath. 

“If any one of them is still paying attention to us,” Donghyuck murmured, pulling back. He shifted his fingers, closing them, the bud of Mark’s nipple between them, “It’s because they wish they were in my place.”

Mark shivered, a shudder against Donghyuck. It was at that moment that Donghyuck realized just how aroused Mark was. He could feel him, a pressure, hard and warm and conspicuous against the top of Donghyuck’s thigh. He wasn’t fully hard, but he was getting there. 

“Oh,” he said, realization dawning, slow. 

The revelation that Mark was that turned on made his thoughts even more scattered, like exhalations in wintry air, there and then gone, faded. He could only feel Mark, warm and hard. And he could feel heated stirrings in himself. He leaned back in, brief, and nipped at Mark’s lip.

“_This_ is why you really want to leave, isn’t it?” he asked, pressing his thigh into the junction of Mark’s legs, feeling the press back of Mark’s hard length. A sharp intake of breath from Mark. 

“Oh, God.“ 

Donghyuck had to pull back, delighted, wanting to see Mark’s expression since his voice sounded so affected. He was left feeling something else entirely, as he looked and was greeted with the sight of Mark, flushed a bright, rosy red. 

“Okay. We’re getting out of here,” Mark intoned, low. 

Donghyuck was still stunned by the blush, just how red he looked. He said nothing in response. His priorities shifted, settled. If Mark needed them to be in another place for this to progress, then Donghyuck wasn’t averse to that idea. 

Mark grabbed Donghyuck’s hand and started to walk away. Donghyuck thought that he wasn’t sorry to leave Cain behind, and the rest of the club, with its stuffy vampires and their pets who’d be discarded the moment they started to run dry, or started to show signs of disobedience to their master. It was all so _ sad _. This was a far better use of his time. 

He was happy to follow Mark outside. As they walked, Donghyuck’s gaze traced Mark’s back muscles, the tattoos that stretched black across his pale skin. When he turned to glance at Donghyuck, the gold of the earrings that lined his ears glinted. Out of nowhere, Donghyuck thought that he was sure Mark had worn silver before. 

When had Mark exchanged his silver jewelry for gold, and why? Was it just for their cover, so it looked as though he was being careful not to harm Donghyuck? Or was it real?

As they rode back to Mark’s apartment, with Mark warm between Donghyuck’s legs, and the night air brisk on Donghyuck’s cheeks, Donghyuck found himself wondering what he was doing. If it was advisable, for him to be encouraging this thing between them.

With a kernel of doubt in mind, Donghyuck slipped off the motorcycle and stood there in Mark’s garage. He watched, and didn’t bother being subtle about it, as Mark dismounted and took off his helmet. Mark looked half ridiculous, but the other half was making it difficult for Donghyuck to care about his doubts at all. In Mark’s haste to get going, he’d shoved his jeans on over the silk shorts. He’d foregone a top, and just thrown on a jacket. Two small red pin pricks shown on his neck, the only sign of what Donghyuck had done to him. Remembering the taste of his blood, the taste of his lips, Donghyuck’s questions fled his mind.

Walking up the stairs to Mark’s place was torturous, an exercise in patience that Donghyuck could hardly bear. As Mark unlocked the door, Donghyuck’s eyes flitted over his hands, up his bare skin, tracing along the line of his abdomen, up along the jut of his collarbones, and higher, to the bite on his skin. He was already keyed up. The moment they were inside, he turned around and pushed Mark against the door. Mark let out a breath, midway between an exhalation and a laugh, as Donghyuck pressed his lips to his neck again, a hair’s width away from the bite. 

“I thought we’d moved past that,” Mark said, “You’ve already fed on me. Kiss me.”

He slipped his hand along Donghyuck’s jaw, and angled it up. Just like that, his lips were right there in front of Donghyuck. What could Donghyuck do in response but kiss him?

He pressed forward, his body flush to Mark’s as he slotted his lips against Mark’s own. Mark’s lips parted readily for him, as though he’d been waiting. At some point, after his tongue slipped past Mark’s, while his hands tangled through Mark’s hair to reach the hair that was shorn short in the back, Donghyuck melted. He let himself drift away on the sensation, let himself relax, untense. He let Mark take some of his weight, his hand tracing up Donghyuck’s waist. 

“Can you taste it?” Donghyuck wondered aloud, when he pulled back to catch his breath, “Your blood.”

Mark’s eyes were closed, his head rested back against the door, his lips parted.

“Yeah,” he said, breathless. His eyelids lifted, slightly, showing his gaze had gone molten, “‘S gross as hell.”

Affronted, Donghyuck asked, “Then why did you tell me to do it?”

Mark had a crooked smile on his face that only grew as his eyes fell low, down to Donghyuck’s lips, before flitting back up again. 

“Because I like kissing you. Is that so bad?”

Donghyuck was stilled by Mark’s expression. Even in his blood drunk haze, there was no mistaking it. As much as Mark hated him, he wanted him, too. That much had been obvious from the first moment they met, but at times like these it struck Donghyuck that Mark’s desire for him was only growing stronger with time. Donghyuck exhaled, tight. 

He shouldn’t be encouraging him. He knew how humans were, how quickly they let their desires overwhelm them, how quickly they fell. If Mark were to ever step over the line, from lust to love – Donghyuck would have to leave him behind. He’d have to abandon him, end their partnership. He’d have the task of finding another human as impossibly reckless and brave as Mark.

Donghyuck was determined, resolute in that moment, not to let that happen. He wouldn’t let Mark fall for him. He wouldn’t have another human’s heart in his hands, not ever again. 

When Mark leaned in to recapture Donghyuck’s lips, Donghyuck pulled back.

“That’s not necessary,” he whispered, when Mark looked at him, questioning, “I’m not one of those guys you pick up in a bar who needs to pretend there’s some romantic spark before you take his clothes off.”

Mark’s brows drew together. His emotions were always so clear on his face, Donghyuck thought, errant. As though he’d never had cause to learn to hide them, as though he was never ashamed of them.

“Do you want to move to the bed, then?” he asked. 

And Donghyuck had no real reason to protest. He’d already been in Mark’s bed with him before, hadn’t he? He fought with himself, Mark’s scent in his nose, Mark’s taste on his tongue, Mark in his mind, overwhelming. Choking down an urgent yes, he nodded. Mark’s grinned, a little wonky, a little strange.

“Alright,” he said. 

Donghyuck stepped back, and allowed him to go first ahead. As he stepped into his bedroom, Mark shucked off his jacket. Donghyuck didn’t bother taking off his coat. Mark half turned, his body perpendicular to Donghyuck and to the bed behind him. He was biting his lip, gnawing on it, probably close to drawing blood. And when he’d taken his jacket off, he must have brushed the bite Donghyuck had left on him. There were small streaked smears of red on the skin of his neck. 

Donghyuck exhaled, and crossed the space between them, unable to wait any longer. He grasped Mark’s shoulder, guiding him to face Donghyuck and then down, onto the bed. As Donghyuck coaxed him back, he pressed forward, laying his lips on Mark’s neck, above the bite. Mark felt burning to the touch, a furnace of warmth in front of Donghyuck, and then beneath him, as Donghyuck raised his knee onto the bed and climbed atop Mark’s lap. 

He took Mark’s skin between his lips, careful not to use his fangs. He worried his skin, gently, so as not to break it. Mark exhaled, his hands skating up Donghyuck’s back. 

“You’re obsessed,” he murmured. 

Donghyuck disregarded it, moving down, crossing the bloodied skin, sucking gentle bruises lower. Mark grasped the labels of Donghyuck’s coat, and it took Donghyuck a moment to realize he wanted it off. Donghyuck let him deal with that, too busy leaving marks on his skin. 

Cain’s words – “I can’t even smell your master on you” – rang in his mind. He’d seen red. Even just the recollection of it incensed him, added an edge of desperation to the kisses he pressed to Mark’s skin. Mark wasn’t his, but he was, at the same time. Donghyuck had a greater claim to him than any other vampire. Cain had no right, infringing upon that.

“What happened tonight won’t happen again,” Donghyuck murmured, before nipping lightly at the thin, soft skin that was stretched over Mark’s collarbone.

“You’re not going to suck my blood anymore?” Mark exhaled, his voice breathless. Donghyuck blinked his eyes open, looking up at Mark from under his lashes, wondering where that had come from.

“No,” he said, then, “I don’t know,” as he frowned, rising. He gazed down at Mark, a little winded, but completely sincere. 

“I’ll make sure they don’t doubt that you’re mine.”

“And how the hell are you going to do that?” Mark asked. 

He was still hurt, Donghyuck realized. Underneath the lust and the desire, he was still angry with Donghyuck. 

The thought prompted a twinge in Donghyuck’s chest, a discomfiting, unwelcome feeling. 

“I have to act differently around you,” he said, leaving out that it wouldn’t be too much of a challenge, acting more possessive around Mark. 

He let his eyes fall closed and leaned in closer. He was set to resume lavishing kisses on Mark’s collarbone when he felt Mark’s hand on his waist. 

He froze, instinctive, as Mark wrapped his arm around him. In one swift move, Mark lifted him, then pivoted, bringing them both fully onto the bed. Mark didn’t quite throw Donghyuck back onto the bed’s pillows, but he shoved him. Donghyuck landed on his back, his breath pushed out of his lungs. And then, moments later, he was gazing up at Mark above him. Donghyuck blinked up at Mark who was by then kneeling over him, his hand thrown out somewhere by Donghyuck’s head. 

He’d just – picked him up. And thrown him. 

Not even other vampires treated him that way, definitely not humans like Mark. Donghyuck was completely taken aback, but otherwise unharmed.

“You can’t just – “ Donghyuck started, a gasp. He didn’t know what to finish it with. Mark’s face was dark, in shadows, his dark hair fallen over his brow as he looked down at Donghyuck.

“Look, I don’t know how the fuck you’re used to doing this with your pets,” Mark’s mouth thinned out at the last word he’d spoken. He paused, then ducked down and reached for the hem of Donghyuck’s shirt. 

“Actually, I don’t care how you’re used to doing this. I’m not just gonna sit there while you do whatever you want to me, however you want.” 

Mark looked up, yanking up Donghyuck’s shirt. Donghyuck gasped. He was so taken aback, he simply lifted off the bed to ease Mark’s venture, straightening so Mark could pull his shirt off. 

“When we’re here in my apartment – when it’s just us – we’re not going to do things like that. I’m not your pet and you’re not my master. Got that?”

“...Yes,” Donghyuck uttered, unable to say anything else, struck by the heat in Mark’s gaze. Mark tossed Donghyuck’s shirt aside and, for the first time, they were equally bare, both in just their jeans. 

“Good,” Mark replied. His expression shifted in the blink of an eye, night and day. A crooked grin spread across his mouth before he leaned in, and laid a kiss on Donghyuck’s lips. 

Donghyuck responded, angling to align their mouths. He wondered at the kiss, considering that it might have been the whole reason Mark had said those things and changed their positions. He was upset, Donghyuck guessed, about Donghyuck cutting their kissing short. And then Donghyuck’s thoughts shifted, went formless, hot and fluid. 

Mark’s mouth was warm, as was the rest of him. He lifted his hand and cradled Donghyuck’s jaw and proceeded to kiss Donghyuck as if that was all he had in mind, as if it was the end goal. Lasting and thorough, he dipped his tongue past Donghyuck’s lips. He took his time exploring the cavern of his mouth, as if this was something he could waste hours doing, as if this was something he could spend his whole night doing.

Donghyuck remembered he had reasons for not wanting to kiss Mark, but he couldn’t remember what they possibly could have been. He sighed into Mark’s lips, moaned into his mouth, arched into the kiss. He chased Mark as Mark broke apart, taking a moment to gasp for air. He wound his hands through Mark’s hair and tugged him back down again. 

“Jesus,” Mark gasped. He thumbed Donghyuck’s lip as he drew back again, holding Donghyuck in place to keep him from chasing before he had the chance to catch a breath.

The surface of Donghyuck’s skin felt tingling, heated. His gut was twisted with the same heat. The heady, drunken feeling become more occlusive, as his blood flowed to his cock. With every minute their kiss dragged on, he grew harder. He reached down with his free hand, skating over the surface of Mark’s back, the knotted muscles that strained and pulled as he held himself aloft over Donghyuck. He found the swell of Mark’s ass. Donghyuck nipped at Mark’s lip just as he tugged him down by hips, seeking more heat, seeking friction. 

Donghyuck was awash in overwhelming sensation. Mark’s scent added onto the smell of his arousal, compounded with the lingering scent of his blood. Then there was the feel of him against Donghyuck, his chest warmer than Donghyuck’s and damp with sweat. Mark’s heart pounded in his chest, audible. His dick was hard, pressing against Donghyuck as he rolled his hips forward, as he buried his head in Donghyuck’s neck. 

He must have muttered every curse word under the sun and then some of his own invention as he laid kisses over the surface of Donghyuck’s neck. “Fuck,” as Donghyuck held his hips still, so that their fun wouldn’t be ruined too soon. “Jesus,” as Donghyuck arched his neck, letting his eyes fall closed. “Oh my God,” in a hallowed, reverent tone, only moments after Donghyuck had bitten down on his own bottom lip, pleasured sensations building, threatening to let loose a moan from his lips.

With all of Mark’s utterances, Donghyuck wasn’t thinking. He let go of his lip, opening his mouth as Mark bit into the sensitive skin at the base of his neck.

“Yes, love,” he exhaled, hardly more than an incoherent murmur, “Just like that.”

But just as he spoke, Mark stopped. Donghyuck lifted his eyelids, though they felt impossibly heavy, weighed down. He looked at Mark, questions in his mind. 

Mark had raised his head, his lips flushed and red and wet, his eyes alert as they skated over Donghyuck’s face. It was then that it occurred to Donghyuck. _ Love. _It had been so long since he’d used it last, so long he’d been this intimate with a human, with their warmth and their light and their almost frenzied passion. And still, the word had just slipped out from his mouth. 

He could hardly muster up the will to do anything about it, not when Mark was as near as he was, not when his exhalations were crossing Donghyuck’s skin, damp and warm.

“I didn’t…” Donghyuck issued, halting. Didn’t what? Think? 

“No worries. I get it,” Mark said, his eyes unnervingly bright, “You didn’t mean to say it.” 

He pushed forward then, surging up to leave a brutal, teeth clashing kiss on Donghyuck’s lips. 

Donghyuck moaned, pleased enough with how well that had gone over, too distracted in truth to let it worry him. His hips bucked forward, seeking the closeness he’d lost when Mark had raised himself up. Before long, his momentary slip-up was lost, carried away. 

One of Mark’s hands rested on Donghyuck’s jaw, but the other found its way to the fly of Donghyuck’s jeans. Mark pulled back, as he thumbed the first button.

“Can I fuck you?” he asked, his voice hoarse, wrecked already. 

Donghyuck blinked. In all his years, he’d never been asked such a question by a human. He flicked out his tongue to moisten his lips before he spoke. 

“I’m used to doing it the other way.”

Mark’s brows drew together. Donghyuck’s thoughts strayed south, to the hard length he felt, pressed against his thigh. Just how big was Mark, he wondered. How would he feel inside Donghyuck? 

“Oh,” Mark said, drawing Donghyuck’s attention back up. His brow had cleared, his gaze serious, “Okay. Then you can fuck me.” 

As a deluge of images and imagined sensations filled Donghyuck’s mind, he inhaled, sharp. Mark’s eyes widened, and he quickly added, “If you want, I mean.”

Donghyuck looked into Mark’s wide eyes. In a split second, he decided. 

“Lie down,” he ordered, his voice coming out rougher than intended. 

Without protesting as Donghyuck thought he might, Mark obeyed. He laid down, the only sound from his lips a deep exhalation. Donghyuck was left to turn, sling his legs over Mark’s, and start unbuttoning his jeans. He didn’t bother hurrying. He took pleasure in the way Mark’s breath hitched with every brush of the back of his knuckles against the bulge in his pants. 

He looked up, and caught Mark’s eye. His gaze was heavy lidded. 

“I’ll let you fuck me,” he said. 

He grabbed Mark’s jeans and tugged them low, just as Mark’s breath caught in his throat. As if in a daze, he belatedly lifted his hips so Donghyuck could pull his jeans off of him.

“Really?” 

“Yes,” Donghyuck said, short, as he finished tugging Mark’s jeans free. He glanced up as he started on his own pants buttons, the first one already undone by Mark’s hand. 

“Ask me another question, and I might change my mind.”

Mark’s mouth snapped shut. Donghyuck felt like laughing, oddly. He ducked his head under the pretense of focusing on his pants, just to hide the grin he couldn’t hold back. It was just that Mark was the most _ human _human Donghyuck had ever known. He was equally aggravating and endearing, equal parts frustrating and charming. He was all of that, at once. 

Donghyuck managed to tone his grin down to a small smile. He slipped off his jeans and shifted forward to settle onto Mark’s lap. Mark was still wearing the silk shorts. They hid nothing, though. There wasn’t even the pretense of decency. Donghyuck gasped as he slid forward and, through the thin layers of silk and his cotton briefs, his cock brushed against Mark’s. They were both completely, embarrassingly hard. 

Donghyuck braced himself, planting his palms against the bed covers as he arched his spine back. Then, experimental, he rolled his hips forward again, rutting along the length of Mark’s dick. 

“Fuck,” Mark exhaled, as Donghyuck let out a moan, as Donghyuck’s eyelids fluttered. Mark’s hand came up to Donghyuck’s waist, in a tight grip, just the right edge of painful, “Do that again.”

Mark’s face was flushed red, his lips bitten and crimson. He was staring at Donghyuck like he couldn’t believe him, like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing and feeling. With effort, Donghyuck retained careful control, as he again rocked forward, slowly rolling his hips as he had before. It was difficult not to chase the pleasurable feeling, not to keep rocking, seeking friction, seeking those brief spikes of ecstasy along the current. 

Mark sighed, his head falling back against the pillows behind him. He kept his eyes open, but only just. 

“You’re driving me crazy,” he said. Then, “Why aren’t you kissing me right now?” 

Mark’s hand slotted along Donghyuck’s jaw easily, as though he already knew it well, all its curves and concavities. He thumbed Donghyuck’s lip. As Donghyuck fell forward, as if pulled by his mere touch, Mark drew his thumb down to Donghyuck’s chin. 

Donghyuck let his eyes fall closed. He kissed Mark with hitching breaths. His chest rose and fell rapidly, breathing going erratic as his cock aligned with Mark’s. He allowed himself to rock his hips, slow, barely managing to kiss Mark for a moment before a moan escaped his lips, as Mark brought his hips up and ground up against Donghyuck. It was all at once too much friction, too much pressure, and too little, not enough. 

He had to be big, Donghyuck thought, half out of his mind, as they kissed, sloppy and imperfect and full of clashing teeth. Donghyuck could feel him, hard and long, stretching farther than he’d imagined. 

Mark’s hand that had been on Donghyuck’s waist slid backwards over his skin, leaving a trail of warmth. Mark slipped it beneath the band of Donghyuck’s briefs. Donghyuck felt chills up his spine, tingles of pleasure crawling up as Mark’s fingers, warm and calloused, grabbed his ass. He hadn’t realized he’d stopped moving, that he’d paused the movement of his hips, until Mark guided him forward again. He pushed Donghyuck’s ass down, grinding their hips together. Donghyuck broke apart to let out a sharp gasp, the sensation was so strong.

“You alright, baby?” Mark asked, and Donghyuck tried not to shudder. 

“Call me baby again and I’ll bite you,” he uttered, breathy. 

Could vampires blush? He couldn’t remember. He felt like he would be blushing then, if he was able.

Mark laughed, light and carefree, and so distracting. 

“Got it. Lube’s in the bedside table, dude.”

“Dude,” Donghyuck repeated, disbelieving and entirely unsurprised in turn. 

He rose, though, unable to hide the hitch in his breath as Mark’s dick twitched against his hip. He drew the bedside table’s drawer open, rifling through the contents, the receipts, the pencils and battered notebook pads, everything else, until his fingers curled around a small bottle. He drew it out, not even bothering to close the drawer again. 

Humans, he thought, as he popped open the cap of the lube – maybe they weren’t completely hopeless after all. It hadn’t been a vampire who’d come up with this. It had been a human. 

“Let me.” 

Mark reached out his hand. Donghyuck looked at his hand, then up, at him. He’d been ready to prepare himself. With pets, they were usually expected to take care of that aspect before the vampire even had to ask. 

Mark must have misread his pause. His mouth quirked up into a half smile, and he reached out further, snatching the bottle from Donghyuck’s hands.

“Don’t worry. I know how to do it. I won’t hurt you.”

Donghyuck blinked, slow. He doubted Mark could hurt him if he tried. He parted his lips, then closed them. With a frown, he looked at Mark’s half smile, wondering why he felt so compelled to let him have his way.

“Fine,” was all Donghyuck said, after a moment. 

He moved aside so he could tug off his briefs, feeling Mark’s eyes on him, keeping his own gaze trained above Mark’s head. He heard Mark’s breathing, low and even. His own breaths came quicker as his anticipation grew . Fully naked, completely bare as he hadn’t been in as long as he dared remember, he straddled Mark’s lap once again. 

He usually didn’t notice the cold, but he did then. He shivered, as air hit every part of him, all of his body exposed. He looked down, at last. Mark’s smile had gone small, though he still retained a touch of cockiness. The small smile was still subtly crooked he looked up to Donghyuck’s face.

“You’re fucking unfair,” he said.

Donghyuck didn’t know what to make of that. 

Mark raised his hand, the tips of his fingers shining, slick with lube. Instead of reaching around as Donghyuck had been expecting, Mark took the head of Donghyuck’s cock into his hand. Donghyuck’s eyes widened, as his nerve endings exploded with newfound sensation. 

“Like, I know how much of a dickhead – “ Mark paused, his smile growing wider. He slipped his hand lower on the shaft of Donghyuck’s cock. Donghyuck’s eyelids fluttered at the feel of it, how _ good _ Mark’s hand felt on him, “ – Sorry. Should’ve picked a better word. How much of a _ jerk _ you can be. But then you look the way you do. And then you kiss me…”

Mark seemed to not be paying much mind to what he was doing with his hands, caught up in talking. It was all Donghyuck could do to at least look like he was paying attention. In the next moment, though, Mark took him off guard. He jerked his hand up the length of Donghyuck’s cock, with a twist up at the, and it was all Donghyuck could do to keep from moaning in pleasure. He bit back a moan and let his head fell forward. He braced himself against the bed’s headboard, his face so close to Mark’s.

“Alright, baby?” Mark asked, innocuous, as he repeated the movement. Donghyuck bore the wave of pleasure that followed, then forced his eyes open to shoot Mark a venomous look. 

“I don’t see why you have to tease me,” speaking was difficult, with Mark carelessly working the shaft of Donghyuck’s cock, his fist slipping freely along it. Donghyuck’s voice was breathy, low, hardly more than a moan, as much as he tried to sound annoyed, “Why can’t you just get on with it?”

“You know what’s a good way to get me to shut up?” Mark asked, far too innocent. 

Donghyuck huffed. Frustrated, begrudgingly endeared in turn, he lowered his head the rest of the way, meeting Mark’s lips in a kiss. Only seconds after, Mark stopped jerking him off. Donghyuck shifted his lips to slot them more squarely with Mark’s, distantly cognizant of the sound of the lube bottle being uncapped and recapped. 

Messy and eager, Mark took Donghyuck’s bottom lip into his mouth. Then, Donghyuck jolted as he felt Mark’s fingers, coated in cold, slick lube, trail down the small of his back. He was still teasing him, Donghyuck thought, even with his mouth occupied. 

He could feel Mark’s smile, the curve of his lips against Donghyuck’s own, as he slipped his fingers down, and pressed the pad of his thumb to the puckered hole of Donghyuck’s ass. Donghyuck hissed in shock, drawing back from Mark’s lip. Mark gazed up at him, eyes searching, careful. 

Ever so gently, Mark tested his hole with the tip of one finger. Shallowly, at first. It was such a strange feeling, unlike anything Donghyuck had experienced before. He knew he was tense, that he’d tightened, that it wasn’t helping. It wasn’t a bad feeling, really. Just different. 

Donghyuck could feel Mark’s finger. The tip of it, and just that at first, warm inside of him. He gasped, as Mark slowly pumped the one finger in and out. He probably never went deeper than down to his knuckle, and still went so slow, so gentle. But Donghyuck was so tight, even that was difficult. 

“Look at me, baby.”

Donghyuck didn’t even think. He looked up at Mark, his lips parted, his breath coming quick, uneven. Mark’s face was focused, intent.

“How are we doing?” he asked, as he worked his finger. 

He talked _ so _much. But his voice was affected, rough and breathless. Donghyuck found he didn’t mind it, not really. He found himself wanting to hear more of it, wanting to hear Mark speak, be it nonsense, or questions, or even his dreadful terms of endearment. 

“You were right,” he gasped, “You’re not bad at this.”

Mark surged up, angling to capture Donghyuck’s lips. He added another finger and Donghyuck let out a high pitched whimper into his mouth. As he adjusted to the odd sensation, he began to enjoy it. There was something about the feeling of the hot slickness of Mark’s fingers as they pumped in and out of his ass. His whimpers shifted to moans, his kissing far from kissing, barely just contact of his lips against Mark’s. 

Mark added a third finger and Donghyuck arched his back. He found himself anticipating the next shove of Mark’s fingers into his ass, anticipating the sensation of Mark, filling him up. 

His lips fell open, as he gasped in breaths of air. He raised his eyelids. Mark looked focused, fully invested in fingering him open. But Donghyuck was growing impatient. 

He reached low, and drew the band of Mark’s silk shorts down. Mark’s dick sprung out of his shorts. It was flushed a deep pink, a bead of pre-cum shining at the tip. At the sight of it, Donghyuck let out a breathy half-laugh, half-moan.

“Well,” he gasped, as Mark slipped his fingers out of him, “I guess I know where you get all your misplaced confidence.”

“There’s gotta be nicer ways of saying that my dick’s big – ” Mark started, then stopped. Donghyuck looked up at him. He had his lip caught between his teeth. He looked almost unsure, “Do you think you need more prep?”

Probably, Donghyuck thought, sneaking another glance down. 

But he didn’t want to wait another second.

“No,” he said, before moving forward, leaving Mark space to maneuver. 

Mark, thankfully, caught on quick. Eyes trained on Donghyuck, he shoved his shorts down further, freeing his dick. Donghyuck lowered down, slow, gingerly. He felt the head of Mark’s dick breach his asshole and he paused. He had to take him in achingly slow, adjusting. The sensation was near painful. Mark was so big and, even with how carefully Mark had prepared him, Donghyuck was so tight. He’d thought his fingers had felt strange, but they were nothing compared to this. 

Mark never jerked his hips up. He never hurried Donghyuck, sliding his hands up Donghyuck’s hips, framing his waist. He was almost shamefully patient as Donghyuck adjusted to the feel of him, to the completely full sensation, of Mark’s dick inside him. He inhaled, shaky. His legs were trembling with exertion, and they’d barely begun. And Mark was being so careful, so tender. It was awful.

“Fuck me,” he murmured. Then, when Mark did nothing, he spoke more harshly, a barked demand, “Did you hear what I said?”

Mark held him in place. His thumb rubbed a slow, soothing circle around Donghyuck’s hip bone, a tender touch that left Donghyuck shivering. Mark’s brows were drawn, his gaze focused. 

“You’re not my master,” Mark said, “Ask me. Nicely.”

_Oh. _

Donghyuck’s lips parted in surprise. He searched Mark’s face and found only conviction there. Mark was completely serious. Donghyuck swallowed around a lump in his throat. His tongue felt thick and heavy.

“Please,” he said, the word strange and foreign in his mouth, “fuck me.”

“Christ,” Mark exhaled. He looked dazed. 

Donghyuck could feel him draw almost all the way out as he lowered his hips. He clenched without thinking, in anticipation, as Mark snapped his hips up. Donghyuck just about saw stars. He could hear Mark curse, but he couldn’t make out the word. He was on the precipice of pleasure and pain, his eyes closed as he sought the sensation, tried to compare it, though it was unlike anything, only close to perhaps climaxing, or drinking blood. Again, Mark lowered his hips and, again, he fucked into Donghyuck.

“Yes,” Donghyuck found himself speaking. He braced his hands on Mark’s chest as Mark slowly, achingly slowly, drove into him. 

Donghyuck matched his slow rhythm, rocking his hips back as Mark snapped his hips up. His hitching breaths and Mark’s low groans were the only sounds in the room at first, as they synced their movements, then started to speed up. 

Then, “Fuck, you feel so good,” from Mark, as Donghyuck descended, arching his back, trying to take him all in, “Jesus.”

And, “Yes,” from Donghyuck’s own lips, “Yes, love, yes.”

A heavy, satisfied sigh from Mark. He surged forward, to Donghyuck’s dismay, throwing off their rhythm. He kissed him, licking into Donghyuck’s mouth as his dick filled Donghyuck up. He moaned as Donghyuck readjusted, so that he could reciprocate, slipping his tongue into Mark’s mouth while he rolled his hips forward. 

Donghyuck’s cock was trapped between them, achingly hard, dripping precum onto their stomachs. Mark’s held Donghyuck fast, his arm around his waist, keeping them pulled close. It wasn’t the most comfortable position, but it wasn’t as though Donghyuck was thinking of that, not as his legs shuddered, not as Mark’s hips continued to move.

Mark kissed Donghyuck with the same intensity he fucked him, just as thorough, just as devastating. His dick, hot and slick, never fully slipped from Donghyuck’s hole, though the thick head came close. Everytime it did, Donghyuck brought his hips down to be safe, and a moan would escape from his lips, before being quickly stifled by Mark’s mouth. 

Mark’s thrusts went deeper, stronger, quicker. Donghyuck was wracked, his legs turned to jelly. It was all he could do to stay upright. He broke apart with a cry, as Mark drove in deeper still, and hit a sensitive bundle of nerves that left Donghyuck feeling like he’d been shocked, with pleasure coursing through his body like electrical pulses. He buried his head in Mark’s neck, inhaling his scent, breathing him in. 

“I’m getting close,” Mark murmured, in what felt like no time at all but what had likely been minutes, and Donghyuck, a moment later, realized that the waves of pleasure he felt were mounting, rising as he rode Mark. He was close too.

“Talk to me, Donghyuck,” Mark said, weaker, punctuated by a groan, “Talk to me, baby. How do you feel?”

Donghyuck could only exhale a breathless sigh in reply. The smell of sex hung heavy in the air and in his mind. His ears were filled with their exhalations, and the sound of Mark’s thighs slapping against his skin. He wound his hand in between them, wrapped his fingers around his cock, slick with lube and pre-cum. He jerked himself off, brutal, quick. He tried to match Mark’s syncopation, even as it grew staggered, uneven. 

Mark grunted, “Should I pull out?” he asked.

“No,” Donghyuck gasped into his skin. He took his hand from his cock so that he could wrap his arms around Mark and keep him right where he was. His fingernails, sharp, dragged along Mark’s back, “Want you to come in me.”

No sooner had he said that, and followed it up with an imperfect, open mouthed kiss to Mark’s neck, than Mark’s hips stuttered their movement, and he groaned a final, “Fuck.”

Donghyuck felt Mark’s cum, hot and liquid, filling him up, leaving him wet. He was burning, on fire, no idea whether the sweat on his skin belonged to him or to Mark, no idea which of them the sound of panting breath belonged to, or whether it was both. He felt his own climax imminent, the tight feeling in his gut drawing tauter and tauter. Unthinking, with his parted lips still pressed to Mark’s neck, he bit down. The sharp tang of blood hit his tongue just as the wave of pleasure broke. 

It was overwhelming, the wave of heat and tingling sensation. A tremor travelled down Donghyuck’s legs and he let out a sound not unlike a whimper, muffled, as his nails dug into Mark’s back. 

He felt Mark’s hand, warm, firm, on his jaw. Mark guided him up from his neck to his lips. Donghyuck barely had time to intake a gasp, trying to catch his breath as his body was wracked with pulsing waves of pleasure, before Mark’s lips were pressed to his. And this was just as overwhelming, the shifting movement of Mark’s mouth, the taste of Mark on his tongue. 

Mark groaned, a vibration against his lips, and Donghyuck felt his groin seize. He came without a hand to his cock. Cum spurted up from his cock, thick and sticky, landing on himself and on Mark. He wasn’t aware of much else save for Mark, and he could sense Mark shaking with him. His hand was rested on Donghyuck’s back, and his kiss was bruising and fierce. 

Donghyuck slowly gained awareness, the diminishing waves of pleasure losing their grip on his faculties. He broke apart from Mark’s lips and took a breath in, deep, stabilizing himself. Then, as soon as he was able, he made to slip off from Mark. He pulled off from him, shivering as Mark let out a hitched sigh. Donghyuck’s every move must have been torture to his sensitive nerve endings.

Donghyuck managed just one movement, before he fell back, collapsing onto Mark’s bed. He felt wrung out, his limbs tingling with exertion. 

All it took was Mark leaning slightly over, reaching out, and brushing his fingers through Donghyuck’s fringe before the full brunt of Donghyuck’s overstimulation hit him. The scents, the sensations, and thoughts. The heat that had rushed through him, like none he’d ever known, burning, complete. He rolled over onto his side and curled up with a soft moan. 

He wished to ask Mark to stop, to just stop _ touching _ him. He was only making it worse. But his lips wouldn’t part except to sigh. He couldn’t move except to open his eyes to gaze up at Mark, and over him. And then, he couldn’t reach out, not even as Mark withdrew his hand. Mark’s lips were more than flushed, he realized. They were stained red – red smudged around the corners of his mouth, red from his own blood. He didn’t even seem to _ care _. 

“Donghyuck...” Mark started, then stopped. He was looking at Donghyuck, looking a bit as if he’d had a revelation, and a bit as if Donghyuck had been the cause of it.

Donghyuck gazed at his expression for longer than he would have liked before he blinked, shifting his gaze down. A moment passed. He could still feel Mark’s gaze on him, as his chest rose and fell, as he tried to catch his breath. 

“...I’m guessing you’re not up to moving, huh?”

“What kind of question is that?” Donghyuck issued, his voice still more breathless than he’d hoped for. He closed his eyes. He still felt overwarm, a heat spread all over the surface of his skin. He wondered if this was how humans felt all the time and, if so, how they coped, feeling like their world was on fire. He heard Mark’s laugh, felt the bed shift beneath him.

“Be back in a sec,” Mark said. 

Donghyuck’s eyes snapped open. He pushed himself up on shaking limbs and watched Mark go, wary, wondering. At least, at first. But his mind was half gone. As he watched Mark walk away, his thoughts quickly strayed. His eyes traced the tracks left behind by his fingernails, angry red parallel lines etched across Mark’s skin, across the large cross tattoo between his shoulder blades. Then, his gaze fell lower. 

When Mark came back, he had a damp washcloth in hand. Distracted as he was, Donghyuck didn’t realize that fact until Mark rejoined him on the bed and pressed the warm, wet cloth to his skin. 

Donghyuck blinked, slow and bleary, as he registered what Mark was doing. Mark kneeled beside him. He began cleaning his chest, wiping off Donghyuck’s own cum that was already drying, going sticky, along with the lube that had spilled. Donghyuck held his breath, watching, not quite sure what to do. He wasn’t a stranger to this part of sex, exactly. Pets sometimes took care of their owners after the act. It was a cursory thing, though. As far as Donghyuck could recall, the pets had never done it quite like this. 

Mark’s face was in shadows as Donghyuck angled to the side, stiff, allowing him to wipe off all of him. There was a smear of crimson on Mark’s neck, and Donghyuck felt a hot lick of shame for his lack of control at the end, even though Mark didn’t seem to care. 

The light from his bathroom was golden at Mark’s back and golden where it washed on Donghyuck’s skin, somehow adding to the illusion that Mark was a source of warmth for Donghyuck to bask in. His breath hitched, as Mark trailed the washcloth lower. 

Mark’s eyes flicked up to him – he must have heard Donghyuck’s exhalation, or felt it as his chest depressed beneath his hands – and that was it, Donghyuck thought. That was the difference between Mark doing this for him, and the pets. The look between them, the understanding that this wasn’t all they were. At any other point in time, it could be Donghyuck stepping in and washing Mark clean. That was how they were – the give and take, the push and pull. 

Mark held eye contact with Donghyuck for a moment, long enough for the corner of his mouth to curl up, and then he looked back down again. 

“You know, you should treat me like this all the time,” Donghyuck blurted out, his tongue loose. 

“Maybe if you were nice to me, I would.” 

Mark’s hand dipped low, the washcloth brushing against his still-sensitive cock, and Donghyuck jolted. 

“Well, I’d be nicer to you if you weren’t so – “ Donghyuck gasped, as Mark cleaned his soft cock. No matter how gentle he was, the rough texture of the cloth was brutal, “ – Intolerable. _ Mark. _”

“Sorry,” Mark said, not sounding sorry at all. He moved on. The bed shifted beneath them, creaking. Donghyuck cracked his eyes open and tracked him, as it occurred to him where Mark might be headed. 

Once on the other side of Donghyuck, Mark stopped. Donghyuck watched his face, unable to look away as it did something curious, shifting to something almost achingly soft. 

“God,” he said, quiet, “We kinda made a mess.”

He leaned down, and started to sponge the small of Donghyuck’s back. Donghyuck quickly averted his eyes, his mind flashing back to how Mark had teased him at first, how he’d trailed lube down his back. He inhaled, sharp, as his thoughts turned to what happened after – how Mark had come inside of him. 

“As I recall, it was you who made the mess,” he muttered, feeling unexpectedly self conscious. 

Mark laughed and Donghyuck shivered, as Mark began to clean between his thighs.

“Oh, yeah. I did, didn’t I?” 

He kept his eyes from straying back to Mark, in hopes of forgetting the soft expression on his face. His gaze crossed to the windows on Mark’s far wall. Though the curtains were drawn, in the cracks above and below their thick fabric, Donghyuck could see the sky beyond exposed – a stripe of indigo on top, and a telltale lightened orange on the bottom. 

“The sun’s rising,” he said, and his voice came out softer than he’d intended.

“Oh?” Mark paused, but only for a moment. Donghyuck didn’t know what that meant, that he’d hardly reacted. Maybe he hadn’t understood.

“I’ll have to stay here again,” he added, squinting at the sunlight, before twisting, glancing at Mark over his shoulder. 

Mark happened to look up and catch his eye. He looked amused, a corner of his mouth ticked up. 

“Fine by me,” he said. And that was that. 

Donghyuck watched him as he proclaimed himself done, and Donghyuck all cleaned up, before slipping off the bed. Mark announced he was going to take a shower, and that he’d probably be headed straight to work after he was done, but that Donghyuck could make himself at home. 

Donghyuck looked at the bathroom door that Mark had left cracked open. He heard the sound of the shower sputtering to life as Mark turned the knob, imagined he could hear Mark’s sigh as he stepped under the spray. Donghyuck could envision the moment, he realized. He’d been in the shower with Mark before. He knew what he looked like, soaked strands of hair that dripped onto his face, and then onto Donghyuck’s chest as he leaned in close. 

He forced himself to look away. Mark had said to make himself at home. What a ridiculous thing to tell a vampire. Donghyuck thought he ought to know better than to let a vampire into his home. He was a slayer, after all. He clenched his fist tight in the fabric of Mark’s comforter, inhaling, filling his lungs with the scent of them, the both of them, that permeated the bedroom air, thick and heavy and cloying. 

Donghyuck blinked just once, or so he thought, but when he opened his eyes, it was clear some time has passed. There was the sound of shuffling, movement, and the room looked moderately lighter. He blinked again to clear his eyes, and saw Mark in front of him, turned away. He was dressed in jeans and a tank top that left his tattoos and bruised, bitten neck on full display, and he was draping what looked to be bedsheets over the window’s curtain rods.

It was nonsensical.

“What on Earth are you doing?” Donghyuck asked.

One last push, and Mark tucked in the last corner of the sheets. He turned around, falling back onto his heels. His expression was sheepish. 

“Just in case,” he said, only adding to Donghyuck’s confusion. 

“In case what?” 

“You know,” Mark gestured, back. He was beginning to look frustrated, “The sun.”

Donghyuck looked at him blankly. 

“In case the sun…”

“God. Nevermind,” Mark huffed, and started for the bedroom door. 

Donghyuck followed him, beginning to piece things together. Mark was using the sheets to block out the gaps in the windows’ curtains which would have allowed the sunlight to fall onto his bed. If he hadn’t done that, as the sun rose, its rays would have shone on Donghyuck. 

Donghyuck exhaled, wondering how he’d missed that, then immediately wondering why Mark had done that for him, and why he hadn’t said a word. Donghyuck blinked again, bleary, his eyes rising to Mark’s head, to the gold earrings in his ears. Mark kept doing these little things, these subtle gestures, and he kept noticing them, only to regret it. 

Mark paused in the doorway, as though aware that Donghyuck was watching him. He turned half around, his hand curled on the doorframe. 

“Bye, Donghyuck. It was actually kinda nice spending time with you,” he seemed to hesitate. Then, the corner of his mouth ticked up into a grin, and he added, “For once.”

Donghyuck’s eyes slid over from Mark’s gold earrings, glinting more subtly after he’d blocked out the sunlight from reaching the room. His gaze met Mark’s and he felt an explicable tightness in his chest. 

“Goodbye, Mark,” he replied, unable to come up with anything else. 

He caught Mark’s smile spread wider, before the tightness in his chest worsened to a twinge, and he had to roll over and feign as if he was falling asleep. 

“Sleep well,” he thought he might have heard, but then the bedroom door clicked softly closed, and he thankfully didn’t have to think about it any longer. 

He was exhausted, wrung out, and even after living hundreds of years he hadn’t had nearly enough experience with humans to know how to navigate this sort of thing. He only knew he had to say something to discourage Mark. He had to let him know that Donghyuck wasn’t looking for any sort of softness from him. He didn’t need his little gestures. He needed his ability to slay vampires, and that was it.


	5. recollection

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A slaying brings suppressed feelings to the surface. Donghyuck finds it difficult to cope and Mark's just along for the ride.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> content warning for some pretty graphic descriptions of blood and vampire slaying and also some separate questionable sexual situations (not bad, really, just questionable)
> 
> (also this has like 10k of smut. idk how that happened. sorry!)

Everything was going to plan.

Some small solace that was, Donghyuck thought. He was still sitting across the room watching Silas pace slow circles around Mark. Silas’s expression was blank as he appraised Mark, but that wasn’t discouraging in and of itself. Silas, like most of the vampires Donghyuck couldn’t stand, prided himself on being different from humans. He undertook painstaking lengths to differentiate himself from them, from his frightfully outdated clothing to the blank mask he rarely dropped. He wore it even then, even ten minutes into this meeting. 

Donghyuck, meanwhile, had already begun to feel the itch of agitation. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. Mark glanced to him then back away, too quick for Silas to have caught it. Donghyuck wondered how he was feeling, whether he had any regrets about agreeing to this plan.

When Donghyuck had first proposed it, he’d laughed. Then, when it had become clear to him that Donghyuck wasn’t playing some joke, he’d said, “Wait. You’re serious?” and quickly followed it up with “Fuck no” before Donghyuck could get a word in edgewise. 

It had taken an evening, but he’d eventually come around to see the logic of it.

Donghyuck cleared his throat. When Silas didn’t immediately look his way, though there was no way he could have missed it, Donghyuck parted his lips to speak. At this point, he wasn’t bothering to conceal his impatience.

“Well? Is the pet to your liking or not?”

Mark’s eyes again flicked to Donghyuck. Though the length of Silas’s outsized study room separated them, Donghyuck could see the annoyance writ clear on his features. 

Donghyuck shared a cold look with him in hopes of conveying that he was getting tired of things moving at their current glacial pace and he was just speeding things along. Then he turned back to Silas, who’d at last stopped in place beside Mark. His eyes remained on Mark for another moment before he looked up at Donghyuck.

“He’s a fine specimen,” he glanced back to Mark, his eyes skating over his form. Donghyuck’s agitation prickled once more, “Unconventional, I suppose. I am… admittedly curious.”

Donghyuck hadn’t even time to process that before Silas clicked his tongue in distaste, “But you’ve fed on him. The marks on his neck – “

Donghyuck had anticipated this. He pushed down his aggravation and allowed an easy smile to spread across his lips.

“ – will fade in a few weeks’ time. Look at him. He’s healthy. In barely any time, it’s going to be like I never touched him at all.”

Silas sighed, put upon, but he didn’t offer another complaint. Donghyuck almost wished he had, because after Donghyuck had spoken, he’d immediately turned back to look at Mark. 

This was all going to plan, he reminded himself. 

He didn’t like the way Silas’s eyes roved down Mark’s frame, though. Silas could put on a blank face but he couldn’t hide the greed in his gaze, the hunger with which he devoured the sight of Mark. 

Mark, to Donghyuck’s begrudging respect, had managed to stay still and play the part of a pet for the entire stretch of time they’d been in Silas’s mansion. He must have been cold, standing there in just a pair of pants from his own wardrobe. Donghyuck had allowed him to wear his own clothes, knowing that Silas would be removing them as the appraisal went on anyways. His shirt lay discarded on the floor beside him. He wasn’t shivering, though. Donghyuck wouldn’t have blamed him if he was, especially given how Silas was drawing closer to him. 

Silas lifted his hand. Donghyuck had to force himself not to react as Silas slowly traced the line of Mark’s neck with a single crooked finger, over the leather collar and lower. Donghyuck saw his nostrils flare as he took in Mark’s scent.

“How did he taste, I wonder?” 

Donghyuck reminded himself that if everything went to plan, he’d never find out for himself. Cheered by that thought, he smiled, tight,

“You should be thanking me for offering him to you.”

Mark’s breath hitched, audible in the still room. Silas retracted his hand, but his gaze wasn’t leaving Mark. 

Donghyuck supposed he couldn’t blame him for that. Right then in the moonlit room, surrounded by the rich crimson and gold of all the lavish furnishings Silas had acquired over time, he was a striking sight. All sharp angles, crisp dark ink against pale skin, harshly shorn hair. Even the scowl on his face… Donghyuck had begun his plan with Silas for a reason. Silas had a weakness for things that were difficult to acquire. And right then, Mark looked unreachable. He was in a pet’s collar, but he wasn’t demure. He wasn’t yielding and submissive, not by any stretch of the imagination.

“Forgive me if I’m skeptical,” Silas said, at odds with himself. His handsome features had warmed somewhat, indication of a seismic shift beneath the surface. 

Donghyuck allowed himself to near a couple steps closer. He felt Mark’s eyes on him. It was an odd game they were playing; him watching Silas, and Silas watching Mark, who was in turn watching him. 

“Not at all,” Donghyuck said, smoothly, “I expected you would be. In fact, I asked Mark if he would be alright with giving you, well – “ Donghyuck feigned consideration. He stopped in his tracks to hesitate, already having closed half the distance between them. 

“ – Mark,” he said, slow but with a touch of excitement, as though the idea had just occurred to him, “Why don’t you tell him yourself?”

Donghyuck held his breath. He should have been watching Silas to gauge his reaction. But in that moment, he couldn’t look away from Mark. 

He’d drawn close enough to them that he could see as Mark clenched his jaw. Anger, Donghyuck thought, throwing out a wish that Mark could keep it suppressed. Their plan hinged on Mark’s acting too – something that, at every moment prior to this, had been suspect at best. 

A moment passed. Mark turned from him, to Silas. 

“If you want, you can try me out first.”

Donghyuck exhaled in relief, letting go of the breath he’d been holding. Mark hadn’t quite managed to conceal his disdain, but Donghyuck suspected that wouldn’t be a problem. He forced his gaze away from Mark, and saw that Silas had naked hunger on his face. Donghyuck took advantage of Silas’s distraction and advanced another few steps forward. 

“Try you out?”

Mark’s eye twitched.

“You know – sample the merchandise? Take me for a test drive?”

Donghyuck could hardly contain his sigh. Mark couldn’t get in a sentence without going off-script. 

“Oh,” Silas issued, hushed and breathless, “How irregular.”

And, at that, Donghyuck forced himself to reconsider just how inept Mark was. The more pissed off Mark was, the more Silas wanted him. Difficulty was an allure, and Mark had it in spades. 

Donghyuck felt that irritating itch again, all over his skin. The plan was going perfectly, and Donghyuck was starting to get annoyed again.

“Mark’s different from other pets. Better,” he stated, his voice coming out more pinched than intended. 

Donghyuck cleared his throat – not that he had any reason to, with Silas acting as though he wasn’t in the room at all, “Feel free to taste him for yourself if you’re so skeptical.”

Silas’s hand had risen again. It was tracing the air around Mark’s collar, not quite making contact with the leather, but threatening to do so at every moment.

Donghyuck’s irritation was mounting. He took another couple strides forward before he realized that he hadn’t meant to, not that time. His feet had moved independently of his will. Mark’s eyes flitted to him, then back. 

“Ah,” Mark angled closer to Silas, stepping so that he was standing with his back to Donghyuck with Silas in front of him. Donghyuck wondered why, for a moment, before he realized that Mark was skipping ahead. He was expediting things because Donghyuck had gotten too close too quick, risking alerting Silas before Mark had gotten him suitably distracted. 

“So,” Mark grabbed Silas’s hand and Donghyuck felt panic, because that hadn’t been planned. Among the panic was irritation, as well as the twisted stirrings of something ugly that Donghyuck didn’t dare name. The stirring, ugly thing within him reared its head higher as Mark pressed Silas’s hand to his collar, “We doing this, or what?”

Donghyuck couldn’t see Silas’s face, not with Mark standing in between them. He could hear his gasp, though, sharp. Silas couldn’t conceal how affected he was. Donghyuck stood his ground and sucked his lower lip into his mouth. He bit down on it as Silas’s laid his fingers on Mark’s collar. He felt his fangs prick his lip as Silas started to undo it. Once the slight pain registered, he quickly released his lip with a silent gasp. 

“I suppose… I might as well. It would be rude to refuse your master since he’s offered you so kindly to me.”

Donghyuck hated the sound of Silas’s voice. He wished to never hear him speak another word. Mark would be silencing him soon enough, he told himself. It did nothing to abate the rising tide of thick, caustic anger in him. 

Silas wasn’t even addressing him any longer. He was addressing Mark directly, doing away with tradition and decorum. All to plan, and Donghyuck loathed it.

Just then, Mark turned his head to the side, at the same time as his hand fell from Silas’s. He glanced over his shoulder at Donghyuck, unsubtle. Donghyuck was taken aback to see he had a smile on his face – though it was wry and far from his relaxed, normal smile. It was as though Donghyuck could hear his voice saying “Hey. Watch this”. Then, he turned from Donghyuck back to Silas. 

“Doesn’t that make you my new master?” Mark spoke. 

Donghyuck exhaled. He slipped his hand into his coat pocket. His fingers felt for the wooden stake hidden away within it. He told himself he was just ensuring that it was easy to access for when the time came, but he traced the carvings on the base of the stake like a ritual. As his fingers followed the rudimentary outline of the sun, he was able to salvage his willpower. He was able to stand still, even as Silas slipped the collar from Mark’s neck.

“Yes. I think it does,” Silas said, his voice lower. 

There was an edge to it, reverberating. A slight growl that told Donghyuck two things: that Silas had completely taken the bait and that Donghyuck himself didn’t know how much more of this he could take. Even tracing Mark’s past etchings was doing less to abate his aggravation. 

Mercifully for Donghyuck’s sense of self control, at that moment Silas moved in. It wasn’t ideal for him to be so quick, but it gave Donghyuck a reason to intervene. A logical reason, anyways. 

“Wait,” Donghyuck issued. He withdrew his hand from his coat, releasing the stake, and closed in on them. Silas stilled, his fangs bared, his hands fast on Mark’s shoulders. 

Mark, for his part, had frozen. He looked tense, though he wasn’t throwing punches just yet. Donghyuck considered that a minor victory in and of itself. Donghyuck was looking at him, hoping for a chance to catch his eye as he slid up behind him. 

This was just one of the paths they’d planned. It wasn’t ideal because Silas was hardly disarmed, but he was distracted, his eyes still on Mark’s neck. They stayed there as he gingerly pursed his lips.

“Is something the matter?” he asked, his irritation apparent in his clipped syllables.

Donghyuck reached out to Mark’s shoulder. Mark felt tensed beneath the palm of his hand as he slid one hand forward, curling his fingers back toward himself. He rested his chin on Mark’s shoulder as he slipped his other hand around Mark’s waist. He could feel Mark’s abdomen as it shifted and moved, warm and hard beneath his touch. He was looking Silas in the eye, wrapped around Mark. 

It was too easy to play the part of the possessive master.

“When you put your hands on him, I realized.” 

He could speak more softly now with Silas right in front of him. The side of Mark’s face was by his forehead, and he could feel the heat emanating from his body, all along his front. As he spoke he moved subtly, capturing Mark’s hand in front. As he continued, he coaxed Mark’s arm back, behind him. 

“I don’t want to give him up to you.”

Silas’s face was shifting, contorting. He was handsome, up to a point, only insofar as he kept his emotions perfectly contained. The moment a touch of fury colored his features as it was then, he looked monstrous. Mark shuddered against Donghyuck, and Donghyuck surmised that to be why. Donghyuck angled up towards him.

“Shh, pet,” he whispered, soft and hushed and only in part to provoke Silas’s anger. 

He leaned in and pressed a kiss to Mark’s cheek, just a brush of his lips against the surface of Mark’s skin. He pulled back half a moment later and tried not to let the way Mark’s lashes fell low, casting dark shadows down his cheeks, distract him. 

With Mark’s hand behind his back, in front of Donghyuck, Donghyuck quickly slipped his hand back into his pocket. He withdrew the stake and pressed it into Mark’s hand. All the while, Silas fumed at Donghyuck, unaware. 

“What on earth are you talking about?” he seethed, his voice harsh. His eyes flicked to Mark briefly, then back to Donghyuck, “Jealousy doesn’t become you, Donghyuck. You offered him to me. I’ll be taking him, regardless of your fickle heart.”

Donghyuck had to smile, humorless. That was rich, coming from Silas. 

“It has nothing to do with my heart. My memory, maybe,” he straightened in anticipation of Mark’s need for freedom of movement, “I recalled that you don’t know how to treat pets properly. You’re cruel with them. Violent.”

Silas’s eyes flashed in recognition, meaning he hadn’t forgotten what he’d taken part in. He remembered who he’d helped kill all those years ago. It should have sated Donghyuck’s anger. Instead, it stoked it. There was a smoldering fire in the pit of Donghyuck’s chest and it flamed higher. 

“What is this all about… is this really your pet?”

Silas took a half step back. Even through his anger, Donghyuck realized that he’d given too much away. He’d overplayed his hand and Silas was catching on. Their window of opportunity was closing. Mark was standing still. Waiting, perhaps, for some indication from Donghyuck to draw the stake out from behind his back. Or maybe he was frozen in fear. 

Donghyuck exhaled. No, that wasn’t Mark. He never froze for too long and definitely not in moments like these. Donghyuck had to trust him. He was waiting for a cue, then. He was waiting for Donghyuck.

“Does it matter? He’s human. He can kill you either way.” 

Donghyuck took a step back, hands slipping off from Mark. Voice even, his eyes on Silas, whose face held dawning realization, he said, “Go ahead, Mark.”

Silas had already half turned to run when Mark caught him. Donghyuck watched, ready to jump in and pull Mark away if things turned sour. It didn’t look like Mark would need his help, though. 

From the moment Donghyuck had directed him, he’d launched upon Silas. Mark grabbed his shoulder, wrenching him back to face him. Silas let out a strangled yelp. His eyes widened, his face grew more contorted and strange. Mark dropped his raised arm down with the stake in hand and drove it into his chest. The smell of Silas’s blood filled the air – different from that of a human’s, darker, less like the fresh tang of spilled human blood and more sooty. It was like overturned earth, something deep and dark and foreboding.

All this in the matter of a second or two. All this before Donghyuck could draw breath. 

Silas let out a muted, gurgling sound, and slumped to his knees before Mark. Mark let him fall to his knees, letting the stake slip out from his chest. Silas’s white blouse was already stained the burgundy tint of vampire’s blood, a wine-red spot that bloomed with every passing moment. Silas’s eyes were wide and fearful as Donghyuck drew up behind Mark.

_ This, _he thought. 

This was soothing his anger. To see the fear in Silas’s eyes that he and others had put in Donghyuck’s love’s heart, it gave him a sense of – not justice, not quite. This wasn’t doling out justice. This was a pursuit of giving Silas and other vampires like him what they’d earned. Retribution, maybe.

Mark’s hand twisted in the front of Silas’s shirt, keeping him upright, for then at least. Silas’s hands grappled weakly with Mark’s arm, but Mark appeared not to acknowledge his struggling at all. 

“How long does he have?” Donghyuck asked, eyes flicking from Silas to Mark. 

Mark’s expression was curious – determination, mostly. But it also held a small, bright spark of something in his gaze that left Donghyuck wanting to search him out. Donghyuck’s breath hitched, and he forced his gaze down. That was a temptation he had to ignore. 

“A couple minutes?” Mark’s voice was nonchalant. Donghyuck was reminded then how often he did this sort of thing. How easy it came to him, “You’ve got time to say a few words to him.” 

Donghyuck gazed down at Silas, who was no longer clawing at Mark’s arm. His expression had gone slack. His hands were barely clasped onto Mark’s hand, and he wasn’t even attempting to pry himself free.

“Do you know why I arranged this?” Donghyuck asked, though he already knew the answer. Silas’s gaze found him, after a few moments. His lips were parted, his face as pale as parchment. 

Donghyuck cocked his head, “Do you know why you had to die, Silas?”

“You’re still bothered about that pet of yours,” Silas ground out, every word of his halting, spat out with effort. 

Donghyuck felt his anger rise again, even though he’d asked. The anger was useful, though. It made him feel even more sure about this. He felt his conviction grow stronger, that this was what he had to do to make things right.

“Do you even remember his name?” Donghyuck asked next, his voice careful. He was boiling underneath the surface, “You condemned him to die. You must remember.”

Mark was completely quiet beside Donghyuck. For once, he kept his lips locked. In the silence of the room, Donghyuck could hear Silas’s rattling breath, and Mark’s steady inhalations and exhalations. 

Silas’s eyes had fallen closed. His head angled back.

Donghyuck could see it as it happened, as the remainder of his life began to drain from him. And that wasn’t fair. That was letting him off easy, after what he’d done. He knelt down, level with Silas, and knocked Mark’s hand aside. Silas listed forward, and Donghyuck moved in to hold him upright, hands in a grip as tight as a pair of vices on his shoulders.

“What’s his name?” Donghyuck repeated, harsher, demanding. 

He sensed Mark shift beside him, feeling discomfort, perhaps. He barely registerered it as Silas’s lips moved without sound passing through them, mouthing words Donghyuck couldn’t make out. 

He shook Silas by his shoulders, “_Say it_,” he spat, louder. 

It was vital to him, for some reason. It was necessary that Silas be able to say it. He had to know that his love’s death had left even a scar on his killers’ minds the way it had left a gaping, still healing wound within Donghyuck.

“I…” Silas began, his voice a ghost of what it has been, “don’t… know.”

He finished speaking, and exhaled a long breath. His head fell forward. Donghyuck stayed there for a moment. He believed, for one brief moment, that Silas’s head would lift again, that he’d have his name on his lips and an apology, a plea for forgiveness, _ something_.

He didn’t move, though. Not in a moment, and not in two. Realizing that he’d never again regain consciousness, Donghyuck released Silas’s shoulders. Silas’s still body fell back. Donghyuck stood up, feeling his lip curl as he took in Silas’s slack face, expressionless again.

He felt an anger unlike anything he’d felt previously that night, a causeless, directionless burst like an explosion within him. He hefted his foot high as the surge of irritation overtook him, as a wave of memories crashed upon him, all the remembered pain that had festered and all the remembered joys that had turned bitter. He brought his foot down as hard as possible, stamping on Silas’s blank face. He felt the crack of bones beneath his boot and heard it split the air, like the cleaving of felled wood.

“Donghyuck – “ Mark gasped. 

Out of the corner of his eye, Donghyuck saw that he’d lifted his hands. He moved no further, an aborted attempt to reach out. But Donghyuck was done. Silas’s nose was broken and his face was made stained and unrecognizable with burgundy blood. The windows in his study were thrown open to the night sky. Come morning, the sun would shine on him. His body would be turned to ashes, and no one would know him either. 

“Let’s go,” Donghyuck muttered. 

With that, he turned on his heel, leaving without waiting for an acknowledgement from Mark. 

The ride back to Mark’s place passed without a word spoken between them. Donghyuck only realized that fact a few minutes before the ride ended, caught up as he was in his thoughts. Distracted, he wondered whether he’d scared Mark. He wondered if he’d finally done it, if he’d finally terrified him enough to keep him distant. He had mixed feelings about that. 

Mostly, he was just irritated at how much he thought about it. 

It felt wrong to be thinking of Mark, even with Mark right in front of him, right between his legs. Mark was only supposed to be around to carry out Donghyuck’s revenge for him. He was a hand to drive the stake into Donghyuck’s enemies. He was never meant to be any more than that. He was never meant to distract Donghyuck in the middle of things like he had tonight.

Donghyuck slipped off the motorcycle before Mark had even cut the engine. 

“You did well tonight,” he said, aware and uncaring of how distracted he sounded, “I’ll contact you again when I make new arrangements.” 

Then, he turned to leave.

“Donghyuck,” he heard, and dismissed. 

“Donghyuck, wait a sec, “ Mark repeated himself, and caught Donghyuck’s arm. 

Donghyuck paused. Though Mark’s hold on him was loose and he was strong enough to shake him off, he paused, wondering why Mark had bothered to stop him to begin with. Immediately following, he felt a hot flash of shame for wondering. He closed his eyes and exhaled, sloughing off the curiosity that always seemed to crop up when it came to Mark. He opened his eyes and shook Mark off before turning to face him.

“What?” he issued, clipped and impatient. 

Mark blinked, his lips parted into a small ‘o’, his eyes wide and shining. For a brief moment, Donghyuck felt guilt. He hesitated, unsure what to say or do next. 

Then Mark’s brows lowered. His lips pressed together and the corners of them tugged down into a frown. 

“Jesus,” his eyes flitted down Donghyuck’s form and back up, unimpressed, “The fuck’s up with you?”

And that was all it took, Mark’s few words like a match struck above kindling. Donghyuck ignited in a moment. Before he knew he it, he was upon Mark. 

“You, for one,” Donghyuck stopped just short of him. Mark flinched but didn’t back away. After he recovered, his glare turned fiercer. He angled in.

“What the fuck did I do wrong this time? I let that dude grope me for you – I _ slayed _him for you. Please, explain how I fucked up this time.”

And Mark was right – he had gone along with the plan perfectly. Donghyuck himself had veered off path. And Mark had killed Silas too, leaving Donghyuck to come in and stomp on him like some human child throwing a tantrum. 

That realization did little to dampen Donghyuck’s anger. If anything, it was like pouring accelerant on the fire within him, the knowledge that he had no real reason to be irritated at Mark, that Mark had behaved perfectly for once, and that every issue Donghyuck had was of his own creation. 

“I said you did well. I meant it,” Donghyuck muttered. He hoped that would be the end of it, that Mark would accept that and not provoke him any more. He felt frayed, at his wits’ end.

“Then what – “ Mark began, fiery.

Donghyuck took a step forward and Mark took a step back, his mouth snapping shut. 

“You’re capable. You’re just – you’re irritating.”

“_I’m _irritating?“ Mark said in an undertone. 

Donghyuck wasn’t done yet, though. He took another step forward and Mark backed up, only to stop. It seemed he’d hit his motorcycle behind him.

Donghyuck’s gaze flicked from the motorcycle to Mark. He scanned his face, finding annoyance, but no real fear. His eyes were alight, animated with ire. The garage they were in was moonlit, and Mark looked as he had in Silas’s study, at once prickly and alluring. He smelled of spilled vampire blood, of exertion, and of his soap. 

Upon picking up his familiar scent, Donghyuck realized that had been drawn in again despite his best efforts and intentions.

He exhaled.

“...I can’t be here right now.”

It was more truthful than he wanted to be, exactly what he was coming to realize himself, just as it came to him. But it was as truthful as he had to be if he wanted Mark to understand and leave him alone. 

He fell back on his heels, eyes sliding from Mark. He was ready to slink away from him and spend another wakeful night and consequent sleepless day thinking of his love and of Mark and how they were both starting to coexist within his head, and how that was so _ infuriating. _The more Mark pushed his way in there, the more it felt as though the memory of his love was being left by the wayside.

Mark’s hand caught his wrist. Donghyuck paused. He couldn’t help but notice how, though Mark’s movement had been sudden, his hold on Donghyuck was still loose. Through Donghyuck’s coat, he could feel a subtle warmth from Mark’s hand. How infuriating, Donghyuck thought.

“Can you say something that means something for _ once_?” Mark’s voice was low, nearly a growl, “I’m getting tired of your bullshit.”

“Let go of me,” Donghyuck’s eyes flicked up. He didn’t quite bare his fangs, but he parted his lips in such a way that he knew their pointed tips would be visible. 

Mark was gazing down at him, unperturbed. He set his jaw, the line of it made sharper in the deep shadows that fell across his face.

“No,” Mark said, turned up at the end like a question. He glanced to the side, then back, and cleared his throat. 

“No,” he repeated, more forceful, “Not until you tell me what’s up. I need to know if you’re going to go off the rails the next time I slay one of these guys.”

And that hit, piercing a hole through Donghyuck’s anger somehow. He blinked, then quickly recollected himself.

“It won’t happen again,” he promised, keeping Mark’s gaze. That, at least, was completely true. He had no intention of losing his temper in front of Mark a second time.

Mark’s grip tightened on his wrist for a moment. His face did something funny. Then, he sighed. 

“Okay,” he said, gruff, “It better not.” 

Donghyuck was stuck on his expression, though. The way Mark had been looking at him. He realized what had been so off about it. 

It had been so long since he’d been looked at like that, was the thing. He’d almost forgotten what concern looked like, when it played across a person’s features. Mark cared about him. A small dip in the corner of his lips told a story that Donghyuck wished he wasn’t able to understand. 

Donghyuck’s breath hitched, a soft sound that should have been imperceptible to human ears, but Mark was so close and paying too much attention. As the sound escaped Donghyuck’s lips, his brows drew close, knitted together in worry.

Donghyuck told himself that he didn’t know what would happen when he pulled his wrist back towards himself. Mark stumbled forward, following Donghyuck’s pull, and Donghyuck’s other hand was already rising to catch him. Mark’s eyes widened and his lips parted and that was the last thing Donghyuck saw before his eyelids fell closed. He listed forward to close the gap between them.

His lips brushed against Mark’s and Mark exhaled, low, a sigh on the edge of pleased.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Donghyuck muttered, his skin still prickling with agitation and something else. Anticipation, maybe, as his lips shifted against Mark’s with every word they formed. 

“Like what?” Mark asked, his question breathless. 

He pressed back in after he’d spoken, his kiss heated and intense where Donghyuck had been trying to restrain himself, to cool off.

“You know.” _ Like you care. _“Don’t play dumb.” 

Donghyuck nipped lightly his lower lip, a small admonishment. Mark’s hand came up to Donghyuck’s waist as he listed back to accommodate Donghyuck’s forward push. 

Mark chuckled, a soft sound that went straight to Donghyuck’s gut, sending it heated and sending warmth skittering like static electricity over the surface of his skin. And that was just his laugh. 

“It’s cute that you think I’m playing,” his voice was low, and already roughened, familiar enough to make Donghyuck’s chest tighten. And that was just his voice.

Mark kissed him then, surging forward to claim his lips, his mouth detectably curled up into a smile. Donghyuck sighed before he could catch himself. As Mark angled his head and parted his lips, his hand crept up Donghyuck’s shirt. Donghyuck shuddered, an involuntary reaction as Mark’s hand traced up his waist. And that was just his touch.

Everything Mark did to him, no matter how small, provoked a reaction. Everything he did to Donghyuck made Donghyuck weaker. 

His tongue slipped past Donghyuck’s lips. Just his thumb began to trace the line of one of Donghyuck’s ribs, Donghyuck broke apart with an aggravated huff. He blinked his eyes open, and ended up staring at Mark just long enough and also too long. He caught how Mark’s eyelids lifted – how, with parted lips, he searched Donghyuck’s face. 

Donghyuck swallowed, thick. He angled in, suppressing the desire to return to kissing Mark’s lips. That way lay nothing good. Instead, he raised his hand to Mark’s neck, half encircling it, right below his jaw. Mark’s breath hitched and he could feel Mark’s Adam’s Apple bob against the crook of his finger and thumb. Donghyuck could feel the sluggish pounding of his heart in the pulsing of the vein beneath his thumb. Donghyuck inhaled his scent as he guided Mark’s head to the side, baring his neck for better access.

Donghyuck kissed his neck, the skin still overlaid with a garden of rose-hued spots, bruises from Donghyuck’s bites and lovebites that hadn’t quite yet faded with time. 

“I don’t like it when you call me cute,” Donghyuck murmured against his skin. 

He envisioned that he was building a wall, that each statement like that counted as another brick between he and Mark. Maybe then, it was alright for him to do this – to kiss Mark’s neck, to breathe in his scent, to part his lips and tug Mark’s soft skin between his teeth. 

Mark sighed, light and satisfied. Again, Donghyuck felt his gut stir, heated. Mark’s hand slid over his ribs, moving front towards Donghyuck’s chest and up. 

“It’s just an expression…” Mark managed, breathless, carefree. 

Donghyuck nipped at his skin, hard, but not harsh enough to draw blood. 

“Fuck,” Mark said, punctuated by a breathy laugh, “Fine. Whatever. Won’t do it again.”

Donghyuck hummed. Mark’s scent was strongest there, with his face buried in his neck. He smelled intoxicating, and all the more so all drenched in the scent of arousal. Donghyuck’s attention had done that to him. 

Donghyuck parted his lips, bared his fangs, and dragged them across his soft skin. The faintest scent of blood joined the aroma in the air and in his lungs. He hadn’t caused enough of a scrape to be able to taste the blood, but the memory of Mark’s taste felt heavy on his mind. Mark let out a groan, soft. Donghyuck was compelled to repeat the movement, needing to hear that sound again. 

Mark’s hand was on Donghyuck’s chest, underneath his shirt. His thumb found one of Donghyuck’s nipples. Donghyuck stopped, pausing with his parted lips pressed to Mark’s skin, as Mark dragged his thumb across Donghyuck’s nipple. Donghyuck was already sensitive, and Mark’s heated touch sent his nerve endings alight.

“Oh,” Donghyuck exhaled. 

Mark’s hand shifted. He took Donghyuck’s nipple between his fingers. Donghyuck felt shivery, heated buzzing spreading across his skin. His own hand fell down from Mark’s neck to palm at his chest for support, as Mark rolled him in between his finger and thumb. Mark started to murmur in his ear.

“Feels good, right?” he asked, and Donghyuck’s eyelids fluttered. 

His chest tightened. His gut was heated and his cock was hardening as Mark’s fingers, dry and warm and rough against Donghyuck’s sensitive, pebbled nipple, continued to play, and tug, and squeeze. Donghyuck’s exhalations were heightened, on the precipice of becoming moans.

“C’mere,” Mark said, rough, before grasping Donghyuck’s jaw and tugging him up. 

And Donghyuck almost let him kiss him. Donghyuck almost moaned into his mouth. But then Mark exhaled, all soft and breathy, like a sigh. And, at the sound, Donghyuck felt something uncurl in his chest, slow and languid. The jealous beast from earlier in the evening was sitting and preening underneath Mark’s soft sighs. 

Donghyuck’s eyelids lifted and he pulled back, abrupt.

No, he thought. This wasn’t how he wanted this to go. Like the rest of the night, Mark was taking things into his own hands, taking Donghyuck’s thoughts and will and desires and molding them to him.

Sensing something had shifted or perhaps alerted because Donghyuck wasn’t kissing him, Mark blearily opened his eyes. His lips were flushed and bitten, whether by Donghyuck or himself, Donghyuck couldn’t have said. His pale neck was colored in a swatch of arraying bruises and bites, ranging from crimson to the palest pink to the deepest purple. He was infuriating in how alluring he was, in how much Donghyuck wanted him.

“Turn around,” Donghyuck issued. It sounded almost desperate to his ears, more like a plea than an order. Mark blinked, slow, his lashes casting dark shadows against his cheeks. 

“What?” he asked.

Donghyuck reached down, keeping Mark’s gaze, and grasped Mark’s hand. He pulled it out from underneath his shirt.

“Turn,” he repeated, less urgent, more intent. 

His eyes flicked to the motorcycle behind Mark, then back. Mark, following his gaze, seemed to understand what he meant. His lips parted into dumbstruck ‘o’. But then, a moment later, he ducked his head and complied. Donghyuck released him as he turned to face away from Donghyuck, towards the motorcycle. 

Donghyuck recalled being forced into watching this same view earlier in the night. Silas had been circling around Mark, coming in closer, and jealousy and possession had been raging within him though they weren’t welcome. 

But Mark had been undressed then. 

Donghyuck held his breath as he reached forward. He didn’t let a sound pass through his lips until he’d plucked the hem of Mark’s shirt loose.

“Aren’t you going to take this off?” he asked, making it obvious by his tone that it wasn’t really a question.

Mark turned and glanced at him over his shoulder. His eyes glinted, his brows low over them. He was playing along, but it was evident that his obedience was conditional. If Donghyuck pushed him too far, he’d lash out. 

“Sure,” he said, with unconvincing ease. 

He turned to face forward again, then reached down, grabbed his shirt, and swiftly tugged it off over his head. He threw it aside, letting it land noiseless on the garage floor.

Donghyuck gave himself a moment to look, a moment where he could drink in the sight of Mark without having to see his gaze. In that moment, he wouldn’t have to consider what Mark was thinking of Donghyuck, whether he looked at him softly or spoke softly or felt soft things about him.

The line of his shoulders was familiar, the tattoos on his arms and back ones that Donghyuck had long started to memorize. With every inhalation and exhalation the shadows of his back shifted, the planes of light that illuminated his muscles elongating and truncating in fragments. Donghyuck exhaled, and reached forward.

With one hand at first, he traced the line of Mark’s body, starting from his shoulder and moving down his arm. Mark was still under his touch, almost unnaturally so. It was as if he was holding his breath. Donghyuck reached forward with his other hand, watching Mark’s back for signs of pleasure or pain, anything, as he skated his fingers over his chest and took his pec in hand. 

The moment felt tentative, with Donghyuck taking more care and moving at a slower pace than he’d anticipated. He leaned in close enough that his lips brushed against the base of Mark’s neck. He radiated heat, but it must have been cold in the garage, because the surface of his skin was covered in goosebumps and his whole body trembled with shivers as Donghyuck parted his lips and spoke.

“Put your hands on the bike,” he guided him, and Mark did it. Without pause, he reached out for his motorcycle.

Donghyuck moved aside, shifting his hand from Mark’s arm to Mark’s abdomen. With one hand, he started to tease Mark’s nipple. With the other, he splayed his fingers and traced down his stomach. As he moved, he had to pull forward. He was brought flush with Mark’s backside, his hips aligned with Mark’s ass. 

Mark shook as Donghyuck played with him, his tremors a source of friction and renewed pressure against Donghyuck’s groin. Mark’s exhalations were higher by then. The line of his shoulders was harsh as his head dropped low, his back muscles shifting.

“Look at you,” Donghyuck commented, pleased, “You’re actually obeying me.”

He leaned back in and pressed another kiss to the back of Mark’s neck. The skin there was pale and clear, still untouched by Donghyuck’s fangs. 

“For now,” Mark murmured, twisting back to look at Donghyuck, “You looked fucked up. I was feeling charitable.”

Donghyuck paused, caught by the glint of Mark’s eye. Oh, but he was infuriating. The way he could send Donghyuck’s heart thudding, his blood pumping, the way Donghyuck’s blood flowed south all at a single murmured, obstinate sentence from his lips. 

Donghyuck composed his features and didn’t let how affected he was show on his face. He dropped both of his hands down to the fly of Mark’s jeans. With the button popped open, he raised one of his hands to Mark’s shoulder.

“Bend over,” he said, voice rough.

Donghyuck ignored the shock of laughter from Mark’s lips and ignored how he looked as he laughed, his face in profile, his dark hair in disarray. His laughter quieted as Donghyuck shoved his pants down. 

“Yes, master,” Mark muttered. Though it was dripping with irony, Donghyuck’s cock didn’t seem to notice or care. Mark bent over, his bare ass brushing against the front of Donghyuck’s jeans, and Donghyuck’s cock twitched in his pants.

“You didn’t wear underwear tonight...” Donghyuck spoke his thoughts aloud, as static filled his mind. 

Someone – maybe him – gasped as Mark shifted, his ass brushing against Donghyuck and then he was bringing his hand back and pushing Mark’s hips forward, off his pants.

“Why would I?” Mark said, nonplussed, turning back to look at him. 

Donghyuck could only hold his gaze for a moment before his eyes dropped down. He sighed, and attempted to pass his statement off as anything other than what it had been – embarrassment – by raising his hand. Curling all but two fingers in, he placed it in front of Mark’s face.

“Open your mouth,” he uttered, the order coming out a touch breathless in anticipation. 

Mark’s gaze fell low, to his fingers. Mark’s lashes cast shadows across his cheeks. He looked up, his eyes glinting, reflective of the light of the half moon that streamed in. Holding Donghyuck’s gaze, he dutifully parted his lips.

Donghyuck slipped his fingers past Mark’s lips into the warm cavity of his mouth. His breath hitched.

“Suck,” he said and then, because he was looking into Mark’s eyes already and he couldn’t help it, he continued in a rough voice, “Get them wet if you don’t want to get hurt.”

Mark glanced down to Donghyuck’s fingers, then back up again. Donghyuck felt pressure, wet and hot, and Mark’s cheeks hollowed out as he started to suck.

And this was a mistake too, Donghyuck realized, his heart sinking. Mark was all harsh angles, sharp cheekbones made sharper as he sucked down Donghyuck’s fingers. He shouldn’t have been able to look at Donghyuck like that, all molten and heated. Donghyuck wanted him. He wanted him so bad he ached, a physical tautness in his chest, a heat that couldn’t be quenched within him.

Donghyuck looked away, his face burning. With his other hand, he reached down and cupped Mark’s ass. He spread his hand, and popped his fingers from Mark’s mouth. He could hear Mark’s panting as he tried to catch his breath. Donghyuck curled in his pointer finger and pressed the pad of his middle finger to Mark’s hole.

He was met with resistance at first. Donghyuck flicked his gaze up. Mark was still turned, looking over his shoulder, watching Donghyuck’s hand with intrigue. At that moment he looked up and met Donghyuck’s eye, though, as if sensing his gaze.

Donghyuck stroked over his hole, slow and deliberate. Mark shuddered, his head ducking low for a span of a couple heartbeats. He raised it again, the heat in his gaze amplified, all the while Donghyuck fingered his hole.

Even with Mark’s spit coating his finger, when Donghyuck finally pushed his finger into his ass, he knew it must have been on the verge of painful. Mark winced, his shoulders hiking up. 

Donghyuck waited a moment, two, long enough for Mark’s shoulders to stop shaking and for Mark’s eyes to crack open and find him again. Mark was warm inside, wet. After he’d allowed him the minimum time to adjust, Donghyuck started to pump his finger in and out of Mark’s ass. 

He started out fast, and soon quickened to a brutal pace. In and out, in and out, his other hand splayed out on Mark’s back to keep him bent over. Mark’s breaths came in short, sharp bursts that matched every in and out.

Donghyuck looked up, though he didn’t need to, though his view then was nice enough already. Mark’s head was hung low between his shoulder blades, no more than the top of his black hair visible. The corner of Donghyuck’s mouth tugged down. He slowed his finger.

“Alright?” he asked, trying for bored and unaffected. 

Though Mark’s head remained low and his voice was breathless, he still managed to speak so that Donghyuck could hear him loud and clear, “‘S that really all you got?” 

Donghyuck felt a different kind of warmth bloom within him. Not the heated, feverish sort that overtook him all too often when it came to Mark. If that was a roaring blaze, this was different. Not dimmed, exactly, nor muted. Different. His mouth twitched into a smile.

He uncurled his pointer finger and let it join the other in the next jab. Mark groaned, his back arching, his head lifting up. The inked designs of his tattoos stretched and tugged over his skin, and his gold earrings glinted bright and warm. Donghyuck couldn’t look away from him. 

He pumped his fingers in and out, his own breath coming shorter, quicker, matching Mark’s. It felt heated in the cold garage, as though the entire room was steamed up. Donghyuck glanced down before pulling his fingers from Mark. He allowed himself a moment to admire his handiwork, the rosy flush that had bloomed across Mark’s cheeks. Then, in a couple deft moves, he undid his pants. He reached into his briefs and pulled out his cock.

He was already achingly hard, the front of his underwear sporting a wet spot from the pre-come that had leaked from the tip of his cock. Still holding Mark in place with one hand, Donghyuck thumbed the slit at the head of his cock. Breath hitching, pleasured sensations gripping his gut, he spread the slick wetness of his come over himself.

He hesitated, thinking back to the painstaking tenderness that Mark had treated him with. Feverish arousal and warm contentment warred within him at the recollection. He couldn’t imagine the expression on his face, how he might have looked, as he glanced back up to Mark.

Mark was staring at him, his gaze heavy lidded, his lips parted, and his heaving breaths audible. Even now he had the look of insolence about him, as though he was waiting for the proper moment to make his rebellion. 

Donghyuck moved forward, extending his hand. 

In a roughened voice, he commanded, “Spit.”

His eyes flashed, and not a moment later, he’d spat into the palm of Donghyuck’s hand. Donghyuck had to glance down to coat his cock in Mark’s spit but, as he did, he heard Mark’s voice.

“Didn’t think you’d be this careful with me,” he said, spoken in a thick, distant tone, as though he hadn’t even really intended to say it aloud. 

Donghyuck flinched. He didn’t appreciate Mark noticing that. He kept his gaze down for a moment, as he aligned the head of his cock with Mark’s entrance.

Mark exhaled, sharp. Donghyuck spared a thought to wonder at his words again, wondering just how far Mark’s thinking had taken him, just how often he’d thought about Donghyuck doing this to him. He sucked his lower lip into his mouth and, in one quick thrust, buried his cock in deep.

Mark was tight inside, wet and warm and sinfully good. Donghyuck bit down harder on his lip to hold back his moan, though he needn’t have bothered. With how loud Mark was being, he wouldn’t have caught Donghyuck’s single moan amidst his muttered nonsense words, his curses and groans.

“Fuck,” was one thing he hissed, “...bigger than I thought…”, another that lodged itself into Donghyuck’s thoughts. He managed a loose grin.

“Too big?” he asked. 

He shifted his hips back, distantly aware of a single trickle of sweat that was tracing a slow path down his back, all his exertion catching up to him. Mark dropped his head low, burying it in the crook of his elbow. 

“Fuck no,” he mumbled, muffled. 

Just for that, Donghyuck snapped his hips forward. But he’d released his lip, and as he slammed his cock into the heated cavern of Mark’s ass again, the pleasured sensation was too much and he let loose a moan. 

Mark’s cry was muffled by his arm, to Donghyuck’s displeasure. He listed over, incidentally driving deeper into Mark, and grabbed a fistful of his hair. Soft locks fell in dark waves over his fingers and he yanked Mark’s head upright, forcing him to stand. Donghyuck gasped as the change in position caused Mark to clench around him, sending a sharp wave of pleasure to wrack Donghyuck’s frame.

“Ah,” Mark exhaled. 

Donghyuck could only see him in profile. He could only see his features, pinched and drawn, and the long line of his neck that had been exposed with his head arched back.

Donghyuck brought his hips forward again, his breath hitching as he felt the enveloping sensation. His leg muscles had started to burn with exertion. Mark’s lips parted, another wordless sigh escaping him. Again. Mark’s next sigh was heightened, louder, more akin to a pleasured moan. Donghyuck had to let his eyes fall closed. Again. Mark was moaning. 

Donghyuck listed forward, pulling Mark flush to him. His whole body burned with the heat of the living, that brief white-hot flash of humanity, so curious in contrast to Donghyuck’s frigid form. Donghyuck’s lips fell upon Mark’s skin. He sought out the soft patch to the side of Mark’s neck, a tender area where the muscles pulled and stretched and jumped as Donghyuck drove into him with increasing brutality.

Donghyuck kissed him on the tender spot, open mouthed, fangs bared. He kissed him once, and Mark shuddered against him. Donghyuck held him fast in place, tightening his hold on his hair, planting his palm on Mark’s chest to keep him from shaking. He kissed him again, thoughtlessly, carelessly, as he fucked into him. He smelled of soap and salt and the intoxicating scent of arousal, and he tasted sweet on Donghyuck’s tongue. 

“Ngh,” Mark groaned, as Donghyuck flicked his tongue over skin. 

Caught up in the sweet sounds he was making, entangled in his scent and taste and the feel of him around Donghyuck, Donghyuck nearly forgot himself. He nearly slipped up and called Mark ‘love’. 

Donghyuck shuddered, his hips stuttering as he bit down on Mark’s shoulder to keep himself mute. Mark whimpered, softer than any sound he’d made so far, a heady, disorienting noise. Donghyuck nearly blanked, his thoughts static. He wanted to speak. He wanted to praise Mark, but something held him back. Some visceral compulsion kept him from speaking the soft words he knew he’d regret. 

Instead, when he released Mark’s skin and started to murmur, he kept his words biting. 

“You love this, don’t you?” he asked. 

He raised his lips to the side of Mark’s neck, tugging his head aside. He forced him to bare as much skin as possible so that, even as undeft his actions were as he slammed his hips forward again and again, he could find purchase on Mark’s neck.

“You put up a show every time you have to play pet, but look at you now,” Donghyuck murmured. 

As if on cue, a hiccup-y cough filtered through Mark’s lips. He clenched around Donghyuck’s cock and Donghyuck briefly had to bury his head in Mark’s shoulder, overwhelmed with sensation. He recovered soon enough, raising his lips again. Instead of kissing Mark’s neck he rose higher, pressing his lips to the crest of Mark’s ear.

“‘Feeling charitable’…” he murmured, pausing when Mark shivered against him. The corners of his lips ticked up into a loose grin, “I’m half convinced that if it weren’t for your pride, you would have begged for this – “  
Mark twisted, dislodging Donghyuck’s hand from his hair. Donghyuck’s words died in his throat. 

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Mark issued, hoarse, “If that’s how you’re going to dirty talk, I’d rather you shut up.”

And then Mark was kissing him, his mouth just glancing at the corner of Donghyuck’s mouth before he reangled and moved back in again. His tongue flicked up Donghyuck’s still parted lips, and Donghyuck’s fingers curled inward. Mark did it again, slower, lapping at Donghyuck’s lips, but not past them. Donghyuck had to pause, clutching at Mark’s chest to stay upright. 

“Mark,” Donghyuck exhaled, as Mark repeated it, lingering. 

Donghyuck couldn’t pinpoint why something so inane was enough to make him forget what he’d been trying to do, just that it was. At Donghyuck’s exhalation, Mark stopped teasing. Donghyuck’s lips were already parted, and Mark licked into them, his tongue sinuous and wet as it slipped against Donghyuck’s own. 

“Fuck,” Mark murmured. 

He’d swirled his tongue around Donghyuck’s, twisting, teasing, and toying with him before pulling away. Donghyuck lifted his eyelids after a brief struggle of will. He saw a strand of spit glistening between their lips. As he looked, though, Mark raised his hand and swiped it over the back of his mouth, severing the strand. 

His eyes were heavy lidded, molten, as he looked into Donghyuck’s.

“I can’t kiss you like this.”

Donghyuck frowned, not following. Mark laughed, soft, causing warm gusts of exhalations across Donghyuck’s cheeks. He reached forward as if to lay his hand on Donghyuck’s face, but stopped just short of it.

“Nah, it’s just – my neck’s killing me. I need to face you.”

And, ah. Donghyuck’s lip twitched.

“I don’t need to kiss you while I’m fucking you,” he said, quiet. 

His voice was affected. He was still in the midst of trying to catch his breath, and caught in the unforeseen struggle of trying to still his heart. Mark was still impossibly warm in front of Donghyuck and around him. Mark blinked, but the smile on his face didn’t change.

“That’s true,” he said. And nothing else. He didn’t need to say the last part. They both knew that Donghyuck didn’t need to kiss him, just as they both knew that he wanted to anyways.

Donghyuck sighed. He glanced down, and pulled back and out of Mark. Mark’s sigh when his cock slipped out of him was deep, something Donghyuck thought would continue to ring in his ears long past the sound itself had ended.

He looked up, and past Mark.

“Why don’t you get on the bike?” he suggested, quiet, soft. 

Mark twisted around to look at him. His skin shone, damp with sweat, its surface reflective of the white blue moonlight.

“What?”

“Have you ever been fucked on your motorcycle?” Donghyuck’s eyes flicked to Mark. He relished in the way Mark’s lips parted, in the silence that followed Donghyuck’s question which spoke to his speechlessness.

“I – “

Mark’s eyes flitted to the side. His cheeks had, at some point escaping Donghyuck’s notice, gone red and rosy. 

Donghyuck’s mouth corner twitched up. The cool night air gusted across his skin and he was beginning to miss Mark’s heat so he took a step closer, sliding into his vicinity. It was rare to render Mark speechless. It gave him a heated thrill, added atop the smoldering warmth within him already. Donghyuck looked up into his eyes, waiting for the answer. His cock ached for friction, renewed pressure, and even this moment of patience was torture. 

In profile, Donghyuck saw Mark’s jaw clench. He caught the shift of shadows as his Adam’s Apple bobbed in his throat. Then, without looking at him, Mark stepped back. He kicked off his pants and hefted himself onto the motorcycle. He seated sideways, one leg crooked, the other planted on the floor. 

“Fuck it,” he mumbled, “Why not?”

Mark’s face was bright red and his gaze was heated and defiant as he looked back to meet Donghyuck’s eyes. Infuriating wasn’t quite the right word for him, Donghyuck thought. It was close, but not quite right. 

He spared a moment to reach out and lay his hand on Mark’s folded leg. The skin of his thighs was creamy white, soft as Donghyuck slid his hand up the length of one. 

His dick lay across his thigh, hard and flushed pink at the head. Donghyuck’s chest tightened as he recalled how it felt inside of him. As he drew up in between Mark’s legs, Donghyuck took Mark in hand. His dick was velvet smooth to the touch and he let out a moan, muffled around Donghyuck’s fingers, as Donghyuck encircled him.

Donghyuck looked up. With his other hand, he reached forward and slipped it through Mark’s hair, cradling his head. Donghyuck let his eyes fall closed as he angled in for Mark’s bitten, swollen lips. 

He’d hoped to take Mark, brutal and rough. He’d hoped to show – one of them, he supposed. Mark, or himself – that there wasn’t room within him for Mark’s warmth. He didn’t know what this constituted, whether he’d shown anyone anything at all. All he knew was the sound of Mark’s sighs. They filled the air as his thumb worked the head of his dick, and then began the gradual process of tracing his pre-come down his shaft to lessen the worst of the friction. 

Donghyuck’s lips brushed against Mark’s, glancing and barely perceptible. He pulled back a moment after, thinking it was only fair that he make Mark work for what he wanted. As if on cue Mark surged forward and, with bruising intensity, captured Donghyuck’s lips. 

Donghyuck let himself melt into the kiss, letting his lips fall open at Mark’s eager insistence. He let his mouth be plundered as he jerked Mark off, lazed and unhurried. He wasn’t planning to bring him off – not then, not before he had his chance.

Mark’s little hitching sighs were intoxicating, though. Every one that filtered past Donghyuck’s lips had him craving for the next. Mark tasted faintly of whiskey, a bit of a burn on Donghyuck’s tongue to match the feverish heat that had overtaken the rest of him.

Donghyuck broke the kiss, the indignant huff from Mark as he did so only serving to stoke his sudden renewed surge of arousal. He glanced down, his hair catching on Mark’s, his breath intermingling with Mark’s. He released Mark’s dick and reached forward to grab his hip. 

But it turned out he didn’t need to guide Mark at all. Mark caught on, coming nearer to the edge of the motorcycle seat, spreading his legs wider. Donghyuck braced himself with one hand on the motorcycle’s cool leather seat as he aligned his cock with Mark’s entrance and pushed back in. He was able to slide in easily with Mark already loosened up. 

Mark hissed, and Donghyuck forced himself not to lose himself in the sensation. He needed to stay grounded enough to look up and see Mark’s eyelids as they fluttered.

Donghyuck was already on the precipice, with each thrust driving him closer and closer to the edge. Mark twisted and writhed and eventually listed forward to wrap himself up in Donghyuck. His leg was folded around Donghyuck’s waist, his arms around his chest, and his face buried on Donghyuck’s neck. Mark exhaled hot and heavy and damp on Donghyuck’s collarbone as Donghyuck tried his damnedest to control the movement of his hips, to hold back from fucking too hard too quick. Each thrust brought him renewed pressure and warmth, and each one stoked the boiling heat inside of him.

His thighs burned with the exertion of keeping himself and Mark upright, adding to the tingling, prickling feeling across the surface of his skin. Donghyuck could have finished like that, blissed out with overwhelming sensation, a faint numbness in his ears, a slight muteness like being submerged in water. 

Then, Mark lifted his head. Donghyuck parted his lids, slowing his hips, wondering if he’d gone too harsh. When he looked on Mark, Mark was already looking at him. His eyes were heavy lidded, hardly open, and they were shining, wet with unshed tears. And – Donghyuck’s chest tightened – he was grinning. The corners of his lips were curled up and his teeth were bared as though he’d just won the lottery. 

“Fuck,” Mark said, “That’s it.”

He extricated one arm from around Donghyuck and slipped it up his jaw. His touch was both sensitive and gentle and it sent pulsing sensations across Donghyuck’s skin. Donghyuck’s eyelids fluttered and he resumed thrusting into Mark, as Mark’s warm exhalations ghosted across his lips.

“That’s it, baby,” he kissed him and, when their lips met, Donghyuck realized that he was shaking, “Fuck me like that.”

A low, guttural sound hit Donghyuck’s ears and he realized only after it had already been cut off, only after he’d already surged forward to return Mark’s kiss, that the sound had come from him. He kissed with intensity and increasing lack of control. His hips stuttered in their movement as he pushed into Mark over and over.

Their panting breaths as they broke for air became the only audible sound in the room. As Donghyuck’s climax neared, he became sloppier and Mark seemed to sense it. He held him close, his leg around Donghyuck’s waist, his hand on Donghyuck’s jaw, his lips on Donghyuck’s.

The feeling mounted, coiling taut and ready to snap, and Donghyuck forgot himself. His bared fangs scraped against Mark’s lips, puncturing them. The coppery tang of blood hit Donghyuck’s tongue. Donghyuck let out a broken sound as he darted his tongue out in search of the taste. Mark’s laugh, low and breathless, danced across his ears and that was it. 

His groin seized. He kept fucking Mark as he rode out the wave of pleasure, listing forward as his legs trembled too hard to fully support his weight. 

Donghyuck broke apart from Mark’s lips with a moan, high and breathy. He trailed sloppy kisses down the underside of Mark’s jaw and down his neck. He was spent but not sated, not yet. Mark’s breathing was uneven, low. His pulse beat against Donghyuck’s lips. 

Donghyuck glanced down. Mark looked painfully hard, his dick flushed an angry shade of pink that neared red at the tip, the head shining and slick with pre-come.

Donghyuck wished to reach down, to bring him to moans and take him apart with just his hand. Instead, he moved up. 

With his lips by Mark’s ear, he muttered, “Aren’t you going to take care of yourself?”

Mark’s breath hitched. He stilled, his hand tensing on Donghyuck’s chest. Donghyuck sighed and shifted, slipping out of Mark. He watched carefully to see Mark’s face slacken, his features relax. There was a shining track down one of his cheeks, a trace of a tear that had escaped from him.

He looked exhausted, too weak to even think about moving, his lips stained red and parted as he tried to gasp in breaths.

“...huh?”

Donghyuck smiled, but not for any reason he would have liked. Mark’s voice, in the end, had gotten him. He was still buzzing with pleasured sensation but it was just one wracked exhalation from Mark that caused his lip corners to curl up. 

Donghyuck leaned in and nipped at the soft crest of Mark’s ear.

“I’m not going to help you. Take care of yourself.”

“Oh,” Mark said, after a beaten moment. Then, softer, angrier, “You dickhead.”

Donghyuck’s smile broadened. The heat that he felt when he and Mark were arguing, and the warmth he felt in being in his proximity coalesced within him. Mark’s leg dropped from behind his waist. Donghyuck reached to grab his thigh and push his legs wider. 

He pulled back from Mark’s ear so that he could watch as Mark reached down and took himself in hand. His hand looked ghostly white against the ruddy flushed skin of his dick. His blunt nails flashed in the moonlight as he stroked himself in brutal, quick jerks. 

Donghyuck felt stirring within him again. This was a shame, he found himself thinking, to end it like this.

“Not like that,” he admonished, soft. 

“What?” Mark grunted, in between a couple of shallow breaths. Donghyuck looked up, sliding his hand down Mark’s thigh, which felt so hot to the touch that Donghyuck wondered if he’d caught a fever. 

“Gentler.”

Mark’s eyes opened and met Donghyuck’s. As Donghyuck held his gaze, Mark bit his bloodied bottom lip and nodded. Donghyuck looked down, his heart skipping a beat when he saw that Mark had done as he’d been told, that his hold on himself was less constrictive and his pace less brutal.

The fingers on Donghyuck’s other hand twitched. To keep them occupied and resist the temptation of reaching down, he lay his hand on the crook of Mark’s neck.

“ …Don’t forget the head.”

Mark sighed, his hand moving steadily across his shaft.

“‘s too sensitive,” he said, breathless, “too much.” 

Donghyuck’s tongue darted out to wet his lips, “Did I hear that right? It’s too much for you?”

After a brief moment, Mark let out a sound akin to a growl, low and annoyed. On his next stroke, he included the head of his dick. His leg had started to quake, shaking beneath Donghyuck’s hand. Donghyuck found it difficult to fight back a grin. 

“You must be getting close.” 

When Mark said nothing in response, his breathing erratic and shallow, Donghyuck took that as confirmation enough. He curled his fingers forward, placing his thumb at the base of Mark’s neck, right between his collarbones.

“You want to go faster, don’t you?” he said, watching Mark’s hand, feeling his leg shake. Mark’s breath hitched audibly.

Donghyuck waited a moment. Then, receiving no reply, “Don’t you?” he repeated. 

He felt Mark’s answer before he heard it, in the tensing of his leg and the bobbing of his Adam’s Apple in his throat.

“Yes,” he issued. 

Yes, but he wasn’t. Yes, but he was waiting, because Donghyuck had told him to. Donghyuck surged forward to press a kiss to Mark’s parted lips. Again, the metallic tang of blood suffused his senses, curling into his lungs, wet on his tongue.

“Go ahead,” he murmured, as he pulled back. The order felt familiar, somehow, though he couldn’t place how. 

Mark’s breath was so uneven, and he was so out of it that he hadn’t even kissed Donghyuck back. The wet sound of his hand as it slid up and down his shaft was quickening, getting louder. The scent of his arousal was thicker even than the scent of blood. His face pulled together. He was about to – 

“Come for me.”

And he came with a breathless curse on his lips. Donghyuck was enthralled, unable to glance away from his face. He tracked it all – how he bit down on his already busted lip, how his eyes fell closed as if he couldn’t take even the slightest bit of stimulation that sight would add onto what he was feeling. 

It was a face of ecstasy, and Donghyuck got a heated thrill from knowing that he’d managed to play a part in that without ever lifting a hand. Another tear had fallen from his lashes. It was tracking its way down his face. Donghyuck’s breath hitched and, as Mark’s breathing began to even and deepen, he reached forward and used his thumb to brush the tear from Mark’s cheek. Mark’s eyelids lifted, his lashes darkened and clumped together.

“You did well, lo – “ Donghyuck caught himself, his hand tensing on Mark’s cheek. 

Mark glanced up at him, his eyes brighter than Donghyuck would have imagined, on fire. Donghyuck let his hand fall from Mark’s cheek, and let his gaze fall away with it.

When he glanced down, he saw that thick drops of come had landed everywhere – on Mark’s abdomen, his thighs, on his hand. A few errant drops even ended up smeared on the leather of the motorcycle seat beneath him, slick and conspicuous. And then there was Donghyuck’s come leaking out of him, shining on his inner thighs. 

At the sight of that, Donghyuck felt the heady sense of arousal drawn over him again. He lowered his hand, but stopped just short of touching any of it himself. After a moment of hesitation, he moved his hand to Mark’s knee. He grasped it.

“You got your hand dirty,” he said. 

He was fascinated at how quickly Mark reacted, how quickly he moved to wipe his hand off on his chest. Donghyuck had to stop him, though. Mark had already been more obedient to him more than he ever could have dreamed and Donghyuck wondered just how far he could take it. 

“Wait.”

Mark held his hand still mid-air, his fingers shining, wet. Donghyuck looked up from them to find Mark looking at him, hesitant.

“Lick it off.”

Mark’s lips fell open, “But….”

Donghyuck cocked his head, wondering if this would be the moment Mark decided he’d had enough. He was watching, his face a mask, not betraying his doubt. He pressed his thumb into the soft skin at the inside of Mark’s knee. When Mark nodded, scarcely perceptible, Donghyuck felt his lips twitch up into a smile.

Mark raised his hand to his lips and began to trace the outline of his fingers with his tongue. As he did so, Donghyuck lowered himself gingerly onto the cold cement ground. He knelt between Mark’s spread legs, keeping his hand on Mark’s knee for support at first, and then to hold him in place. Donghyuck let his head fall to the side to pillow his cheek on Mark’s thigh as he gazed up at him. 

It was the perfect vantage point to watch as Mark slipped his fingers into his mouth, his eyes falling closed. A rosy, saturated flush bloomed across his cheeks as they hollowed out. The soft, wet sounds of sucking, slurping, and the impenetrable haze of sweat and come and arousal occluded Donghyuck’s senses. He was already hardening again, blood flowing to his cock, making it thick and heavy between his legs. 

He exhaled, and dropped his gaze. It wouldn’t do to get too turned on at this point. Mark didn’t look ready to go again so soon. He reached forward with his free hand and, without a word, slipped the tips of a couple of his fingers into Mark’s hole. He was so wet that they slid right in. Mark let out a shocked sound, muffled around his own fingers, and clenched tight around Donghyuck. 

Donghyuck’s mouth corner lifted higher. He shifted his fingers, stroking lightly on the walls inside of Mark. He’d hardly gotten a couple strokes in before Mark’s muffled noises became clearer. His fingers must have slipped from his mouth in his distraction. 

Before long, panting and letting out breathless moans, Mark loosened again and Donghyuck was easily able to slip his fingers free. He gazed at the tips of his fingers, wet with his own come, and rubbed his thumb across them, curious. He imagined himself in Mark’s place moments ago, lapping himself up, filthy and sodden. 

He glanced up, caught Mark’s eye. He rose off of Mark’s thigh and let his smile spread wider as he gazed up at him. 

“Would you like more?”

Mark’s eyes flashed in confusion. Donghyuck, deciding to make it clearer for him, stood up. He leaned over him, raising his hand from Mark’s thigh and grabbing one of the motorcycle’s handles behind him for balance instead.

He brought his slick fingers in front of Mark’s lips. Mark’s eyes flicked down to them, realization dawning.

“If you want more, all you have to do is ask.”

The sound of Mark’s swallow was harsh. His eyes flicked back up. His gaze was burning, defiant. Even now.

“You’re kinda sick,” Mark said, in lieu of an answer. In lieu of saying no, Donghyuck realized.

Donghyuck’s gaze skated over Mark’s cheeks, flushed crimson. He was only inches from Mark’s face and could see the heat all over him, in his eyes, on his skin, in the way he couldn’t hold Donghyuck’s gaze for too long before flitting his eyes away. As though he was afraid of being seen, of being found out. It clicked for Donghyuck in a moment and his smile twitched into a broad grin, his lips sliding over his fangs. Mark’s uncharacteristic obedience, coupled with Donghyuck being unrestrained with him. The more he saw of Donghyuck, the more he wanted him. He wanted him so much that even something like this was appealing to him.

“And you like that,” Donghyuck exhaled. Then, with barely contained excitement, he added, “Say please when you ask.”

Mark’s lips flattened. He glanced back up, caught Donghyuck’s eye and, in the flattest tone, he said, “Fine… Please, let me have more.”

Donghyuck started with his thumb, pressing the tip of it to Mark’s busted bottom lip. He wondered at how much that must have stung when he let out a low hiss. Despite the pain, Mark’s lips parted almost greedily, his tongue drawn back while Donghyuck’s thumb remained on his bottom lip.

“...You like this, too,” Donghyuck continued, speaking aloud, rapt. 

He slid his thumb forward, and Mark’s lips closed around it. His lashes fluttered, then fell, casting long shadows down his cheeks. He sucked, his tongue rising thick and sinuous to press against the pad of Donghyuck’s thumb. He was so warm, in and out, his mouth a warm cavern and his skin radiating heat enough to warm Donghyuck’s face.

Donghyuck slipped his thumb from Mark’s lips and there was time enough for Mark to sigh, thick and weighted. Then Donghyuck pressed the tips of his slick fingers to his lips.

“You like being used,” Donghyuck spoke softly. 

He was unsure whether that was something he ought to say aloud. Mark might react poorly, shutting him out at the realization that Donghyuck was figuring him out. Mark’s eyes flicked up. Donghyuck’s words stuck in his throat as Mark fixed him with a playful raised brow. A corner of his lip rose into a momentary smirk before he let it fall, then let his mouth close again around Donghyuck’s fingers.

He’d smirked. Donghyuck was less sure about his realization then, but he continued as best as he could. It was hard to gather his thoughts anyways, with Mark’s tongue swirling around his fingertips.

“I used you to kill my enemy. I fucked you. And now you’re licking my fingers clean… and you love it.”

It felt as if he’d accomplished something. Mark’s hand rose and slid over Donghyuck’s, his grasp warm. Donghyuck’s breath hitched. It felt as if he’d broken him in… as if he’d finally tamed him. 

He could hardly believe it.

Mark pulled off Donghyuck’s fingers. With the tip of his tongue, he lapped at them, cleaning up likely the stubbornest remnants on Donghyuck’s fingers. His eyes flicked up and met Donghyuck’s, dancing with a playful light that caused Donghyuck to forget himself for a moment. He forgot to draw breath, paralyzed as the unexpected recipient of Mark’s ministrations.

“If you were using me, I wouldn’t mind,” Mark murmured, his voice rough and wrecked, a shot straight to the molten pit in Donghyuck’s chest. 

“Good,” he exhaled, feeling dazed, “I’m pleased.”

Mark’s lips closed. His gaze shifted in the moonlight, like the shimmering surface of a lake at night. He adjusted his grasp on Donghyuck’s hand, and Donghyuck’s heart thudded as his fingers slipped through Donghyuck’s own. He rotated their interlocked hands. Then Mark leaned forward, his eyelids falling low, and then he brushed his lips against the palm of Donghyuck’s hand. 

Donghyuck could hear his heartbeat in his ear, thunderous, as Mark remained there. His exhalations were warm across Donghyuck’s sensitive skin, but each one sent a shiver down Donghyuck’s spine.

“I’m kinda lost on that, though, if I’m being honest,” he said. 

His lips continued to brush against Donghyuck’s palm as he formed words and Donghyuck felt a feverish heat rising up his neck.

“Maybe you think you’re just using me,” Mark murmured. His eyes flicked up, “But I’m not so sure you are.”

Donghyuck was held in place by his heated gaze as the words he’d said sunk into his mind. 

He was deluded, Donghyuck thought. Vampires couldn’t enchant humans, not like human movies seemed to think they could. But something about being involved with a vampire drove humans to the brink, sooner or later. It had finally happened to Mark too. 

Donghyuck had been concerned when he’d realized Mark cared for him and his concerns only grew with the revelation that Mark seemed to think Donghyuck felt the same. Donghyuck tugged his hand out of Mark’s grasp. His heart was still beating rapidly in his chest.

“I assure you,” he said, low, “I’m perfectly aware of my own feelings.”

Mark blinked, and Donghyuck realized the tone of his voice had come out in a downright growl. He huffed, tight, and glanced down. He pulled up his underwear and started to do up his pants.

“I’m not saying that you’re not…“ Mark hedged. Donghyuck looked up. 

Mark looked haughty again already, utterly convinced of whatever story he’d constructed inside his head. The sweep of lashes and the arch of his brow were familiar as Donghyuck traced them. Donghyuck’s eyes fell down along the line of Mark’s easy, unselfconscious list atop the motorcycle. What he felt in his chest wasn’t the angry beast that had reared his head when Silas was touching Mark in his appraisal. It was a decidedly smaller creature, softer, delicate and annoying in its insistence on being felt.

“Well, actually,” Mark’s lip corner lifted. He paused, and Donghyuck realized it had been because Donghyuck had bodily flinched. Donghyuck sighed, tight, and looked away.

“Nevermind… It’s been awhile since I’ve been fucked like that. That’s all I’m saying.”

Donghyuck was trying to quell his thoughts in their bid to complete Mark’s sentence. He didn’t want to know. He didn’t want to know what Mark had to say about what was going on between them.

“You’ve been fucking the wrong people,” he said, stiffly. 

He took a half step back, suddenly desperate to vacate the garage and leave Mark’s presence. 

Mark laughed, sharp and shocked, as though he hadn’t been expecting that response.

“So you’re the right person? …Hold on. You’re leaving?”

Donghyuck glanced back at Mark.

“What?” his voice was cold, “Were you expecting a kiss goodbye?”

Mark blinked, the smirk wiped from his face. A laden pause passed in silence, and Mark’s expression shifted to a frown.

“I’m done with you for tonight,” Donghyuck continued, his tone tinged with frost. 

And then, because it had been on his mind ever since the night had begun, “We’re not going to try what we did with Silas again,” he then glanced away, unable to look Mark in the eye out of fear his voice would betray something. What it might betray, he didn’t know, “It’s an unnecessary risk. We’ll find another way to convince them to meet alone with the both of us.”

“Whatever,” Mark grumbled, sounding more than a little annoyed.

Donghyuck nodded, not catching his eye, and turned away. He strode from the garage, keeping his head high, feeling Mark’s eye on him like he imagined a ray of sunlight might feel, warm and prickling on the back of his neck.

The sky was still dark when he walked out from Mark’s garage, though it had already begun to turn, shifting from black to hues of navy and indigo. Donghyuck hurried back, loathe to have to turn around and ask Mark for his help. He couldn’t ask Mark to shelter him for a day again after so thoroughly rebuffing him. 

Donghyuck walked in to the hotel where he lived, nodding at the doorman (Ernie. He’d only worked there for a couple months, and he kept calling Donghyuck ‘young man’ despite Donghyuck having several centuries on him, but Donghyuck was already warming to him), and the receptionist (Alice, he thought. She smiled a bit too widely at him for his liking. And there she went, batting her eyelashes as he passed the hotel front desk). 

He took the elevator up, all the way to the highest floor. He might not live in a mansion like most other vampires, but he wasn’t about to live in squalor. He walked into his penthouse apartment. The blackout curtains on the windows were already drawn, as he’d begun to anticipate staying a day or so in Mark’s place after their nights spent together.

Donghyuck sunk into his lush bed and curled over. He felt cold, an unusual, discomfiting sensation. He felt a sharp tinge to the lonesomeness that he’d long grown accustomed to. It was as if its edges had been sharpened, as though its new points were piercing him from within. It made it difficult to draw breath. 

This was all Mark’s fault. That stupid, stubborn, impossible human. 

Donghyuck closed his eyes, and a remembered vision of Mark flashed inside his head. Mark, sitting on his lap in the vampires’ club, his eyes full of molten hatred. Mark, staring up at him from between his legs in front of a fireplace in Ten’s mansion, his eyes crackling like the fire beside them. Mark, laid out beneath him on Mark’s bed, his eyes melted and warm, crinkled out at the corners with a smile on his lips. Mark… 

Donghyuck tossed and turned, trying to snuff out his thoughts. 

This wasn’t fair to his love. He was thinking of him less and less, Mark newly occupying too much of his mind. Stupid. Stubborn. Infectious, as though he’d planted a lit match within Donghyuck and, from their first meeting, it had ignited. It was as though there was a wildfire within him growing quick and out of control, despite all the times Donghyuck had tried to extinguish it.

He recalled, unbidden, the hurt look on Mark’s face from before. Donghyuck’s cold words had finally cut through his air of haughtiness. They had pierced through, and left him doubting. Donghyuck sighed. He closed his eyes and dropping his head, curling himself in and occupying even less space on his wide bed. He just had to keep at it. He just had to prove to Mark that there was nothing between them. 

It would be difficult, Donghyuck thought, as he finally accepted just how inaccurate that was. 

He didn’t know when it had started. Maybe it had been from the first moment he’d laid eyes on Mark, and had felt tempted for the first time in a long time to break his promise not to drink fresh blood again. Maybe it had been when they’d fought with fists and nails, until they’d reached a tentative stalemate. Maybe it had been when Mark had first glared at him, or maybe when he’d first kissed him. But he knew now what he should’ve have known then: Mark had lodged himself inside of Donghyuck. He was carving out a place for himself, bright and distinct among the pain and loss and hurt, shining like a beacon, enthralling. 

It would be difficult to deny it, but Donghyuck had to try. If not for himself or for his love, for Mark, at least. It was always a death sentence in one way or another, to love a vampire and be loved by one in turn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just imagine johnny's reaction when mark shows up to work the next morning with his lip scabbed over, his neck bruised up, walking kinda funny, and way too busy brooding 
> 
> (also i still don't know if this is an ongoing series, sorry for all the confusion! i'm just writing whenever i have inspiration for this series.. and lately i've had a lot of inspiration.)


	6. confrontation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> donghyuck and mark have a heart to heart

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i can't thank you guys enough for the love you've shown this fic so far! i've read each and every comment and they're all so encouraging. this chapter is a bit of a change of pace from the usual. it's completely sfw ! i hope you enjoy it nevertheless ~

_ . . . Mark . . . _

When Mark walked into the garage half an hour late the next morning, it was with a blistering headache and a conspicuous limp. Johnny eyed him as he made his way in, trying and failing to be subtle about it. 

“You know,” he started, and Mark groaned, “Everyone else manages to get to work on time. And they don’t live literally on top of it.”

“Sorry. Won’t let it happen again.” 

Mark hefted his hand high to shield his gaze from the sunlight that came streaming in. It was high in the sky, a bright midday sun that would have been welcomed on any other day. 

“Late night gaming?”

Mark turned his narrowed gaze over to Johnny, his confusion overtaking his various aches, “What? Like, video games?”

Johnny shrugged, “Table top, then?”

Mark looked at him blankly. Surrounding them, their coworkers bustled around, actually doing their jobs. Chungha was discussing specs on a lemon that was proving particularly cantankerous; Hendery was half hidden, the upper half of his body disappeared beneath the body of a bright pink VW Beetle. 

Their stalemate in the center of the garage meant they were garnering some curious glances every now and then, but nothing more. Even if the rest of the crew wanted to say anything, Johnny was their boss. What he said went. 

Johnny was still peering at him, frowning, “ … lots of Netflix?”

Mark felt a rush of heat flood his cheeks as he realized that even Johnny had somehow noticed his exhaustion. Even when Mark had been averaging four hours of sleep a night between locating, stalking, slaying vampires and procuring supplies for said slaying, Johnny had still never once noticed it. Or, if he had, he’d never asked him about it.

_ God, _ Mark thought as he shifted, and a fresh twinge shot up his backside. He thought of his motorcycle, freshly cleaned and parked right outside the shop. He thought of Donghyuck’s voice, changed but still sweet, curling in Mark’s ears as he spoke the nastiest things. Impossibly, his face went warmer. Sharp annoyance amidst the encompassing embarrassment.

“Yeah. So much Netflix,” Mark said, flat. 

He pretended Chungha had waved him over and quickly made his exit.

Throughout the day, he went through the conversation from the night before, thinking of what he’d say to Donghyuck now that he had his wits about himself. He stretched out to reach for a wrench and his backside ached anew and he scowled at no one in particular. Donghyuck was going to get a mouthful when he showed up that night.

But Donghyuck didn’t show up. Mark waited in his apartment, sharpening his stakes and resharpening them. When that was done, he scrolled through his phone, downloaded a new app, deleted it. Donghyuck never showed. 

Mark realized Donghyuck had never promised he would. But then again, even on the nights he did make an appearance, he hadn’t promised either. He liked to come and go as he pleased, not even a care for Mark’s own plans. 

Mark tossed his stakes aside and slumped onto his bed. It was too late to consider just going out anyways. The sky was lightening, streaks of pale yellow across the navy blue, and every vampire with any sense would be hiding out in their hovels already. 

One week passed. Donghyuck should have showed up by now. Although, he hadn’t exactly had time to mention any new plans between calling Mark irritating and telling Mark he was just using him. Mark wasn’t thinking about it.

Another week. Mark was getting restive.

All his aches had long faded and not even the stubbornest love bites remained. There were two lightened dots on his neck, just two pinpricks where the skin was pink and shining, the hue of freshly healed skin. And that was it.

Mark stared at the bite in his bathroom mirror. He trailed his fingertips over it, then watched the corners of his lips edge down into a frown. 

Bullshit, he thought. Donghyuck was running scared. He was hiding from Mark. Mark was more annoyed with himself that anything. He should have guessed that the first time Donghyuck hadn’t showed. That was just like a fucking vampire. 

Mark fell back, his eyes skating from the mirror, his lip flattening. Since when did he wait for a vampire’s say-so before he went hunting? He didn’t have to wait around for Donghyuck. He had an itch and he was going slaying.

..

Without thinking too much about it (and as a result of thinking too much beforehand), Mark found himself taking the lefts and rights that would lead him to the bar just the next neighborhood over. He kept coming back here, he thought, parking his motorcycle in the alley just down the block from where he’d slain a vampire only a few weeks prior. 

As he took up residence in the doorway across the street from the bar, he found himself not thinking of that slaying. Instead, he thought of what had followed it. The warm patter of the shower’s spray against his skin. Donghyuck’s voice, softened and muted through a bathroom door. Donghyuck’s features up close, water dripping from his lashes and tracing paths down his skin. His gentle ministrations and his cold words.

Mark’s hand tightened on his stake. He normally spent this idle time preparing for the ambush, but he realized he hadn’t been sharpening it at all. He didn’t need to. The point was filed down completely. 

Mark’s eyes flicked up to the bar. Back down to the stake’s spike. He slipped the stake into his jacket pocket. It thumped against his ribcage as he stood and crossed the road. 

There would be a vampire beyond the door, ready to extend an invitation to any of the bar’s vampire clientele. Mark grinned at him as the door slid open, showing off his blunt teeth. The vampire’s expression didn’t alter at all. He hadn’t reacted the first time Mark had walked into the bar either. Now Mark realized why. The vampire thought Mark was just a pet, here to meet his master.

Maybe the vampire at the door hadn’t been quite wrong on that count, he thought as his gaze crossed the room. If he was being honest with himself, he’d only come to the bar because he’d met Donghyuck there. Maybe some part of him hoped he’d be there again – .

Mark’s chest constricted as his eyes fell on a single solitary figure in the back corner of the bar. His golden hair and golden skin and bright golden jewelry made him stand out against the drab furnishings and the muddy paintings that decorated the speakeasy. 

He was sitting there, gazing down at a mostly empty glass of some crimson drink on the table in front of him. His expression was blank, his lids low. The only thing that was changed from the first time they’d met was where he was sitting – in the farthest corner. And how he was sitting – listed over, sprawled carelessly in the booth. It looked as if he’d been there awhile.

He looked up as Mark walked past the other vampires and pets in the bar without sparing them a glance. Donghyuck’s eyes glinted in recognition as he spotted him, and suddenly the air flooded back into Mark’s lungs. Then he straightened and a smile crossed his lips and Mark froze. He was poised to slip into the booth, unsure now that he was faced with a sharp grin.

Because Mark had been ready to let loose with the expletive-filled rant that he’d been preparing for weeks. But Donghyuck was smiling at him, and he couldn’t remember a single word of it.

“How do you always show up at the – most inconvenient times?” Donghyuck asked. His voice was warmed, the consonants all smoothed over. And, oh, that explained the smile. 

Mark felt his defenses start to crumble as he took the seat across from Donghyuck.

“You’re drunk.”

“No,” Donghyuck protested immediately. His face transformed again, his lower lip protruding into a pout. 

He did that when he was a little out of his mind, Mark thought. Whenever his inhibitions were the slightest bit lowered, whenever he wasn’t quite so quick at hiding things, he got a little… cute. Mark didn’t bother ignoring the warmth blooming within him. It was useless to try at this point. He just slumped back against the booth and let his smile spread wide.

“Where’ve you been, anyways?”

Donghyuck’s gaze fell low. His finger slipped from the rim of the glass in front of him, down. He brought it up to his lips and drained it. 

“Would you look at that?” he pronounced carefully, “I’m in need of another drink.”

The drink had stained the inside of his lips, turning them a saturated red. It lent to the illusion that he was human, flushed and golden and warm. A part of Mark wondered at what he was drinking. It was too light a red to be wine.

Mark watched Donghyuck as he stood and made his way over to the bar. There wasn’t a sign of his drunkenness present in the easy, composed way he walked. Mark sighed. It was no use. He was still annoyed at Donghyuck, that much he knew. He felt a prickling undercurrent of irritation. But that did nothing to abate just how much he wanted to stand up, to cross the room and press him against the bar and kiss him until he relaxed and sighed and began to kiss back.

Mercifully, before his train of thought could veer any further off track, Donghyuck glanced back at him from the bar. Mark felt something tight uncurl in his chest as Donghyuck’s eyes flicked down over him, lazy, only to slide back up. After a moment, he began speaking to the bartender. After another moment, he finally turned back away again.

Mark felt feverish. 

When Donghyuck returned with two drinks in tow, he tried not to eye him as obviously as Donghyuck had leered at him. 

“Bartender wanted to know if my pet wanted anything,” Donghyuck said. He’d managed to smother both the pout and the surliness. Instead, he had on a small, self satisfied grin. 

Mark huffed an annoyed breath. It bothered him more than he wanted to admit, how much it affected him when Donghyuck said ‘my pet’ in that voice. He couldn’t even hide it from Donghyuck either. He wasn’t sitting across from Mark, as he had been before, but right next to him – close enough to see the flush that must have been covering Mark’s cheeks. 

Donghyuck had a wicked glimmer in his eye as he slid a glass towards Mark – it wasn’t the rich crimson of his own drink. Now that Mark was looking closer at it, it appeared too saturated to be any natural red. The fake red of maraschino cherries. When Mark raised it to his lips, he caught a scent that also smelled like artificial cherries. 

“What is this?” 

“A concoction of our own invention,” Donghyuck’s voice was a low murmur. 

Mark hadn’t realized until that moment what a filthy word _ concoction _could be. 

Donghyuck paused and took another sip of his drink, then lowered it, “It’s made for pets. It mimics the effects of drinking blood but it’s suited to your physiology.”

About a million and one things came to Mark’s mind. He weighed a few of them.

“Not your pet,” he mumbled at last. He set the glass down off to the side, but wasn’t quite able to look away from Donghyuck. 

Donghyuck gazed back at him for a long moment. His eyes were just a touch too bright and reflective, the only sign of his inebriation. Well, that and the staring. Mark frowned at him and Donghyuck twitched at last, blinking and pulling back as if remembering himself.

“Well, yes, obviously… but the bartender didn’t know that, did he?” 

Donghyuck took another long sip of his drink. Drawn in by the movement, Mark watched as he lowered the glass, leaving a drop of crimson clinging to his lip corner. Donghyuck caught Mark’s eye and his tongue darted out, swiping the errant droplet away. 

Mark shook himself, pushing his gaze back up. 

Still frowning, he said, “You ran.”

“What?” Donghyuck had gone still.

Mark shrugged, managing to procure some of his last nonchalance.

“After we… the night we slayed that vampire. You ran and hid.”

Donghyuck tugged his lower lip in between his fangs. His eyes were stormy above it, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You _ do_,” Mark insisted, low. He was starting to get pissed all over again. He looked away from Donghyuck and swore. Looking into his wide eyes, shining and flooded with warm red light, wasn’t helping him any right then, “You know. I’ve thought a lot of things about you, but this is the first time I ever thought you were a coward.”

Another long pause. Mark felt as though the air had thinned. He was still breathing but every breath seemed not to clear his mind but, instead, made it even harder to think. At last, he chanced a glance towards Donghyuck. What he saw stopped him short.

Donghyuck had drawn even more of his lip into his mouth. One hand was holding his half emptied glass, but the other was drawn across his eyes. It was as though he was shading them, but there wasn’t any bright light or sun. He was hiding again. Hiding from Mark _ again. _

As Mark watched, dismayed, Donghyuck exhaled. 

“It’s not as easy as that,” he said, with the bitterness of a long held secret. 

Mark shook his head in disbelief. He listed back against the booth and whisked up the drink that Donghyuck had brought over for him. If he was going to have to deal with trying to have an actual discussion with a vampire, he suspected he’d need some alcohol in him. 

He brought the drink to his lips. The glass rim was cold and the sweetened scent of artificial cherry cloying. He paused for a moment, the glass pressed to his bottom lip, as Donghyuck lowered his hand halfway down his face. His eyes, now unobscured, were narrowed and sharp. He spoke and his fangs were quick flashes of light in the shadow that his hand cast across the lower half of his face.

“You don’t know what I’ve been through. You don’t know why I’m being so – why I can’t do what you want me to do.”

Mark was acutely aware of how threatened Donghyuck must have felt. He was baring his fangs, his voice low and reverberating, almost a growl. The red lights of the bar cast the illusion of a flush onto his skin, and his eyes, though sharp, were lined with stress. There was an ache deep in the lines of his face that Mark found himself relating to.

“So tell me,” he said. Because it was that simple, really. Donghyuck was the one making it complicated with whatever vampire intricacies he had within himself. 

Donghyuck’s gaze cleared. He blinked at Mark, wide and shocked, as though the idea had never occurred to him. It would have been funny if it weren’t so ridiculous. Mark felt a pang for vampires, for how repressed and stopped-up they all must be if the thought of just speaking about something that was bothering them came as this much of a surprise.

He hid his wonky half smile in the drink and took a small sip of it. The sweetness of cherry flavored syrup hit his tongue and, half a moment later, he exhaled a stunned “Whoa” as his limbs started to relax.

“Careful,” Donghyuck said, small, “It’s strong.”

“No shit,” Mark gasped. Instead of the burning edge of alcohol it felt cold, leaving his throat frostbitten as he swallowed it. 

Donghyuck’s brows drew together above his distracted gaze, “I’m serious. I shouldn’t have – just. Don’t drink too much of that.”

“_O_-kay,” Mark sounded out. He set the glass down with utmost care, wary of handling it wrong, lest he set it off. Something in Donghyuck’s voice made him worried it might.

“I’ll tell you,” Donghyuck said, then, in such a small voice Mark could barely make it out. He almost forgot what Donghyuck was talking about, with the conversation jumping around as it was, “Not everything but – “ Donghyuck exhaled and it struck Mark just how close he was, how easily he could read Donghyuck’s expressions in the bar’s low lights, “Yes. Not everything. But some of it. You deserve that.”

And Mark actually smiled at him, at first. He didn’t know why – maybe it was a victory smile. Maybe it was encouraging. Whatever it was, it didn’t last. It fell from his face, as Donghyuck told him what was on his mind. 

More than a hundred years ago, there had been another human, another pet. Mark had figured that much, from the snide comments from the other vampires. 

A hundred years – that was a long time. It was almost incomprehensible for Mark. He supposed he’d held onto his anger for quite awhile too. Eight years and it still ached him, the deaths of his parents, the knowledge of the vampire who’d caused it. Maybe instead of lessening over time, it had festered for Donghyuck, his anger. 

Because he’d loved the human. He’d loved him a lot. Mark could tell that before Donghyuck ever said it aloud, from the way his eyes shone too bright, from the thickness of his voice as he spoke of him. 

“ – I loved him.” 

Donghyuck said it fiercely, as though Mark was going to contest the fact. Mark’s chest tightened. 

All he could do was nod and say, with as little bitterness as he could muster, “I can tell.”

“... I loved him,” Donghyuck had said then, as though Mark hadn’t spoken at all. He’d emptied his glass and was absently tracing around the rim of it, but his hand had stopped then.

Gently, Mark prompted him, “Can you tell me what he was like?”

It wasn’t what he wanted to ask. His curiosity urged him to ask what had happened, why every vampire had his name on their tongues when they met Donghyuck. But then Donghyuck’s face relaxed. The lines smoothed over and a soft smile played across his lips and Mark’s stomach twisted as every question he had vanished.

“He was...” Donghyuck trailed off, then ducked his head as his smile grew wider, “He was trouble.”

From the way Donghyuck had spoken about him, he would have thought Donghyuck’s pet had been an angel. 

Donghyuck looked up suddenly and Mark felt the wind knocked out him. He didn’t know what to do or how to react now that Donghyuck had turned that wide, carefree smile to him, “Not like you. He wasn’t like that around other vampires. Renjun only ever spoke out of turn when it was just the two of us.”

Mark blinked. Had Donghyuck ever spoken his pet’s name before? He couldn’t recall. He was still stuck on Donghyuck’s wide smile. His stomach was twisted into knots still, but his chest felt all warm. It was a confusing mix of sensations but, in the end, one of the corners of his lips twitched up.

“He sounds smart,” Mark said, unable to help himself. 

Donghyuck _ laughed_. He laughed, curled over and unbridled as if it had been shocked out of him. When he quieted and righted himself, he was still grinning, his fangs a bright white against his red stained mouth. It was disconcerting and enchanting and – _ God _, Mark wished Donghyuck had gotten him a proper drink. 

“You don’t have to be smart to know that threatening vampires is a bad idea… but he was. He read all the time. And painted too. We had a room just for his paintings – the only room in our home where the curtains weren’t drawn. He’d never let me in during the day. But at night, he’d…”

Donghyuck trailed off again, looking at Mark – just looking. 

“ … Let you in?” Mark filled in the rest of Donghyuck’s sentence for him when it appeared obvious he wouldn’t. 

Donghyuck was still staring at him with a strange expression on his face. The silence made Mark more aware of the tightness within him.

“I asked you not to look at me like that,” Donghyuck said. 

Mark blinked, eyes wide. He recalled Donghyuck saying that before. He’d been too distracted to figure it out then and he wasn’t faring any better now. Donghyuck was close, so close, and frowning at him. And then his eyes were skating away, off of Mark and past his shoulder.

“Anyways – he. He was smart. I was stupid. I got too arrogant and crossed the wrong people and they couldn’t take it out on me, so they – “ Donghyuck stopped. 

He’d switched up in an instant, from thoughtful to caustic and bitter. But the thing was, his anger was completely see-through. Maybe it was because he’d had too much to drink and he was getting sloppier, but the jut of his clenched jaw and his furrowed brow wasn’t doing anything to fool Mark. 

He no longer felt quite so warm. Seeing Donghyuck’s futile, festering anger felt like looking in a mirror. 

“It wasn’t your fault,” he said, the words drawn up from a well deep within him, phantom echoes of things he’d heard from countless well-meaning but disinterested adults.

The glare he was treated with then felt deserved. It was completely inappropriate but Mark couldn’t help himself. He laughed, though it felt tight and wrangled and wet. 

“Fuck, sorry,” Mark listed back, carding his hand through his hair, “I shouldn’t have – sorry.”

“They killed him because they couldn’t kill _me_,” Donghyuck hissed, his gaze so dark and fatal that Mark might have been frozen in fear had he not know Donghyuck so well. But he did know him, and he knew that Donghyuck only ever glared and never followed it up. 

“It’s my fault,” Donghyuck intoned, “I might as well have killed him myself.”

Mark eyed Donghyuck, trying so hard to extricate the various aches within him from each other. It was difficult to separate them, the pain he felt for Donghyuck and his own pain. 

“I don’t think that’s true,” he said, after a beat. 

Donghyuck shoulders hitched higher. 

“I don’t plan on going through that again,” his eyes flicked away from Mark for a moment, “The only other deaths I want on my conscience are those of every vampire who called for him to be hurt in my stead.”

Mark bit back his doubts about Donghyuck’s conscience. 

“You loved him.”

Donghyuck frowned. Already the fierce fury that had lit up his gaze was fading. He nodded once, a quick jerk of his head.

Ignoring the twinge in his chest, Mark dropped his hand from his hair and leaned forward, darting out his tongue to wet his lips. 

“You really wanted to keep him safe, too.”

“Yes, Mark,” Donghyuck replied, his voice small, “That was all I wanted.”

Oh, God, Mark thought. His heart kicked up a beat. Was he really doing this? He looked at Donghyuck’s tired eyes, the red lights splashed across his cheeks, and the sorry forward slump he was sitting in. Well, he thought as he took all of it in, he’d made worse decisions before. 

Determination solidified, Mark pressed his lips together and reached forward, closing the slight space between them on the booth. Donghyuck’s eyes widened. Mark laid his hand over where Donghyuck’s hand was resting on the table, curled into a loose fist. His hand was cold in contrast to Mark’s. He felt him tense, but he considered it a minor victory in itself when Donghyuck didn’t pull his hand away.

Before he could say anything, Mark rushed to speak, “To me, it sounds like you’d have done anything to keep him from being hurt.” 

Donghyuck’s eyes were still wide and Mark did everything in his power to keep from flinching or looking away from them. He willed Donghyuck to believe what he was saying. He’d been where Donghyuck had been. Not in the same way, not at all. But so similar, despite that. His throat ached as he continued to speak. 

“He’s gone and _ they’re _the only ones who deserve any blame for it, okay? The ones who killed him. Not you.”

“If it wasn’t for me – “

“Bullshit,” Mark swore, and yeah, he was starting to sift his anger and aches from Donghyuck’s. Donghyuck’s hand was uncurling beneath Mark’s. Mark felt like he could see him at last, and not just the mirrored aches of their pasts, “You loved him. You wanted him alive. It’s not your fault.”

Donghyuck’s hand remained beneath Mark’s for a moment, completely covered, and then it slipped out. He frowned.

“Everything’s so simple for you.”

It was spoken without obvious condescension but Mark still felt his face heat in embarrassment. He curled his hand in – the wood of the table strange after the feeling of Donghyuck’s hand.

“Sometimes things are simple,” Mark said. He’d spoken it fiercely despite his heated cheeks.

Donghyuck’s eyes fell, landing on Mark’s hand. His expression was troubled. His lips parted.

“... but do you understand now why _ this _ can’t be?”

Mark almost opened his mouth to ask what ‘this’ was. Then he realized and he stopped as his heart thudded against his rib cage. Donghyuck was talking about _ them. _ He felt a hot flush spread low, rooted not in embarrassment but something baser, deeper. 

“No,” he said, “I don’t get it.”

Donghyuck looked up, his gaze weary as if he knew he should have expected this from Mark. The heat flamed across his cheeks.

“It’s not like we’re repeating the past here. You don’t love me, and I’m not him,” Mark grinned, though it wasn’t funny, not really, “I’m not a pet. I’m a slayer.”

He watched what he’d said as it impacted Donghyuck. He watched his eyes close for a moment then open more tired than ever.

“And you think that’s some guarantee that you won’t fall prey to the same fate as Renjun?”

“No,” Mark repeated, fiercer, leaning forward as he curled his hand into a fist. As he spoke the words, he came to believe them. As he said them, he found his conviction. 

“_You _do. That’s why you tracked me down and asked me to join you. That’s why you’ve brought me to the darkest corners of your world, filled with the evillest vampires. You believe in me.” 

Mark’s vision was narrowed, the darkened bar around them faded to oblivion. It might as well have been just he and Donghyuck and their shared booth seat in the world then. He saw it perfectly, the moment Donghyuck’s lips parted. He heard it perfectly, the moment he exhaled a breath that wasn’t quite a gasp, but wasn’t quite a sigh, either.

“Mark…” he began, and Mark felt the same sense of frisson he always felt when Donghyuck said his name. 

“Yeah?”

Donghyuck bit his crimson-stained lips, then released them. His eyes glinted.

“It’s not a belief in you so much as in your utter inability to let anything get to you. You can’t be beaten down no matter how many times they try. Like a weed…”

“You say the sweetest things,” Mark grinned again, real this time. 

His eyes skated over Donghyuck’s face, wishing he could draw closer, knowing it wouldn’t be right.

“So we’re back in business then?” he asked, trying to restrain his hopes.

“We were never out of it,” Donghyuck returned, paired with a quirked brow. It came out a little strange, likely due to the indeterminate number of drinks he’d had. It only served to be endearing and – _ fuck, _was Mark a goner. He felt his grin grow and grow.

“Yeah but, like, you’re coming out of hiding, right?”

Donghyuck sighed, but didn’t answer. One of the corners of his mouth had quirked up and Mark found it difficult to draw his eyes away from it. He wondered how that smirk would feel against his lips, and how Donghyuck might respond if he closed the scant space between them.

“And what about…” 

Words were suddenly much harder to conjure. Mark huffed a laugh at himself, at how ridiculous it was to get all modest and shy now, “I mean, can we still – you know?”

Donghyuck looked helplessly amused. His brow twitched, though, like he was angry about it. 

“Are you asking if we’re going to continue sleeping together?”

Mark nodded quickly, relieved that he hadn’t had the need to say it himself. 

Donghyuck cocked his head to the side. He rested his head on his hand, his elbow propped up on the table. 

“I don’t think it would be wise.”

Mark’s grin was by then a stubborn fixture on his face.

“That’s not a no.”

The one raised corner of Donghyuck’s lips was joined by the other. He gazed at Mark, smiling just broad enough that the tips of his fangs poked out. 

“I really can’t see myself allowing anything like that to happen between us anytime soon...”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you guys were curious about donghyuck's past pet - i hope this chapter answered some of your questions!


	7. routine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> donghyuck's back with a new slaying plan in tow! just some good light-hearted slaying fun for the not-bfs

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> content warning for vampire slaying.. and all the violence that entails (stabbing vampires and having them die and all that). also i want to remind you before you read this chapter that this fic is and always has been ridiculous.

“Tonight, we’ll be attending another ball – “

“ – Jesus fucking Christ,” Mark gasped. He took an automatic step back from the sudden, unexpected visitor in his bedroom. 

In his shock, he’d released his grip on the towel cinched around his hips. He scrambled to gather it back up again, trying to maintain at least some of his dignity. All the while Donghyuck continued to drawl, looking completely out of place and still far too comfortable atop Mark’s bed.

“I think with your skill it’s possible for us to slay someone at the ball and go unnoticed –”

“We need to get you a bell or something. Sneaky bastard,” Mark hissed, before turning and started to rifle through his dresser for clothes. It was more to hide his rapidly warming cheeks than anything else.

It was like the two weeks of radio silence from Donghyuck had never happened. Donghyuck had slid right back into his apartment, touting the same plans in the same tone as if he’d never taken off and stayed gone.

All of it seemed the same. The only sign that Donghyuck remembered their talk at all came when Donghyuck next spoke. 

“I brought clothes for you,” he said, uncharacteristically tentative. 

It was as if words spoken not as an order were foreign to Donghyuck’s tongue. Mark’s lip twitched at that thought. He turned around from the dresser.

“Alright. Let’s see it then.”

Mark whistled low as Donghyuck withdrew a couple items from his sweeping black coat. 

“Pants and a real shirt. I’m getting spoiled tonight.”

Donghyuck shook his head. Mark had thought he’d at least get half a smile from that, but Donghyuck only looked distracted and distant.

“Yes, I suppose you are. Hopefully the shirt is loose enough that you can conceal your stake.”

Mark blinked, wondering if that was an intentional innuendo. 

“Uh…”

Donghyuck gave him a blank look and Mark closed his mouth._ Not _ intentional then. 

Still holding his towel upright with one hand, he carefully maneuvered taking the pants and shirt from Donghyuck. He wondered if he was imagining the awkward air between them. He wondered if Donghyuck felt it too, and wondered why it had appeared now. Things had seemed perfectly fine after their talk in the bar.

He changed quickly, feeling the absence of Donghyuck’s eyes on him. After, Mark tested and found out that he could indeed just tuck his stake into the back of his waistband and let the flowy, light cotton shirt hang loose over it, concealing it. It’d be easy as anything to reach back and draw the stake out, and Mark felt a hell of a lot better actually having his stake within reach rather than buried somewhere in the depths of Donghyuck’s massive coat.

He just looked – well, Mark looked a bit like he belonged in a period piece. Not that he’d ever seen one, but he had seen enough commercials for them to feel like he should only be wearing an outfit like this if he planned on tromping through some rainy moors. 

“Do you have anything for me from this century?” Mark sighed. He drew the stake out from his waistband, twirling it around in an effort to quell his mounting anxiety. 

That provoked a response from Donghyuck at least.

He sniffed as he gave Mark a rather lingering once over, “Don’t be ridiculous. You look respectable. You’ll be taken seriously like this.”

Taken seriously?

Mark stopped spinning the stake. When had it ever mattered if the vampires took him seriously?

Without so much as a single word in protest, Donghyuck slid behind Mark onto the motorcycle. Mark glanced over his shoulder at him. Things were just downright fucking _ weird _at this point.

Donghyuck’s gaze was cast down and he was seated as far back as the limited space on the motorcycle would allow, providing for a gap of an inch or two between them. Mark was suddenly hit with the memory of the last time they were on this motorcycle together, their panting breaths, the beaded sweat on his skin, Donghyuck’s grip on his thigh. 

_ Christ, _he thought. He wondered if that’s why Donghyuck seemed so stiff, if he too was recalling those memories. 

“Hold onto me,” Mark said, before turning back around. He revved the motorcycle’s engine, “It’d suck if you fell.”

Donghyuck didn’t reply. He didn’t move at all, not until Mark kicked the motorcycle into motion. Then Donghyuck wound his arms slowly around Mark, as if reluctant. There was cool pressure fast around his chest. Donghyuck’s thighs were pressed against the outsides of his own and Donghyuck’s various necklaces and shirtlaces and fasteners dug into his spine. It was difficult not to shiver. 

The city was still at this hour, in the small span of time after the commuters’ cars had finally made their way home and before the roving crowds of drunken bar-goers overtook the streets. Donghyuck’s silence was all the more stark for it. There was nothing to hear but the wind whistling in Mark’s ears. In ten minute intervals, Donghyuck would whisper clipped directions – “take a left up here” “keep going straight”. The tickling of his exhalations would quickly be carried away in the wind, leaving Mark to wonder if he’d ever felt it at all.

He didn’t understand. Donghyuck was sitting flush to him and he still felt farther from him than he’d felt when they were apart. 

He was so caught up in his thoughts and so caught up in the familiar press of Donghyuck to him. He barely realized they’d left the thick of the skyscrapers and low shops and stores of the city until Donghyuck whispered again in his ear.

“Park anywhere that isn’t a driveway. There’s too many vampires in this neighborhood to risk that.”

Mark blinked and saw the world around them instead of just the road in front of him. They were facing out on rolling hills dotted with not-quite-identical bleached mansions. The mansions were all sprawling, decorated with bone-white columns and statues. 

Mark scanned the dark horizon, wondering how many of the city’s richest were bloodsuckers. He felt a fresh rush of bitter anger towards their kind. 

He parked his motorcycle just off the street, the well-polished body of the cycle shining in the night behind the neighborhood sign. He twisted around and saw Donghyuck unbuckling his borrowed helmet, shaking his hair out before carding his fingers through it and combing it into place. Watching him, Mark felt something gentler and even more dangerous overtake the brief anger he’d felt. Donghyuck lowered the helmet and looked up, catching Mark staring. 

Mark half expected him to say something along the lines of “Don’t look at me like that”. But he didn’t. Instead, Donghyuck turned away, his profile lined in the soft blue light that was cast down from the moon and stars.

When he turned back around, Donghyuck had a ribbon of black silk in his hand. Wordlessly, he extended it out towards Mark.

“Oh, awesome,” Mark’s fingers brushed against Donghyuck’s cool palm as he took the collar from his hands. Donghyuck’s eyes flicked down then back up. Barely noticeable, a flicker in the moonlight, “I was worried you’d forgotten.”

Donghyuck gave him a funny look. Mark wondered if he was imagining it, or if there was actually a chorus of crickets accompanying the painfully awkward silence. After Mark had slung the collar around his neck and knotted it as best he could, he looked to Donghyuck again. He plastered a grin on his face.

“Well? You ready to kick some vampire ass?”

At long last, a soft smile graced Donghyuck’s lips. There and gone again in a moment. 

“I can’t believe you still need help with your collar.”

Mark parted his lips to protest that he’d done just fine by himself, hadn’t Donghyuck been watching, when Donghyuck strode two paces forward. He closed the space between them and took the loose strands Mark’s collar into his hands. 

With a few deft tugs, Donghyuck was able to undo the knot Mark had tied. Then, he started to redo it. Mark didn’t know where to look. Donghyuck’s eyes were pointed at the collar, and Donghyuck’s knuckles kept brushing against his neck. Donghyuck spoke softly, explaining how he was tying it and where each loose end was meant to go. Mark could only pay attention with half his mind. The other half was caught on Donghyuck’s lips. 

Where Mark had left ample room for himself, Donghyuck fastened the collar snugly around Mark’s neck. When he spoke to say a breathless thank you, he felt the silk stretch and tug.

“Yes, well,” was all Donghyuck said in reply. 

His gaze was still down, his fingers lingering on one of the loose strands of silk. They stood there like that for a moment, the night still around them. The moonlight was blue on one side of Donghyuck’s face and the light emanating from the sign was a warm yellow on the other.

Donghyuck lifted one of the strands, and his gaze raised with it. There was a new glint in his eye that set Mark’s muscles tensing, “Now all you need to undo it is one pull right on this…” 

Mark’s eyes flicked back and forth from his hand to his gaze. He’d thought Donghyuck might have been about to say something else – though, what else he could have said, Mark wasn’t sure. Mark nodded anyways and Donghyuck gave him a tight flash of a grin. Then he turned and started up the street and all Mark could do was follow him.

The mansion that Donghyuck walked up to, like all the other mansions they passed on the way in, seemed the place where a human millionaire might live. The first indication of what creatures it actually belonged to was the sprawling landscape, dotted with couples. In each pair there was always one figure clad in dark clothes and one in sparser clothes, sometimes with a visible collar.

Unlike the cozy warmth of Ten’s mansion which had been lit by warm yellowed lights and crackling fireplaces, this mansion was a picture of chilling prosperity. Cold white marble floors met cold white walls. Marble pillars and pallid statues of male and female nude forms were present in the entryway. Classical music, replete with the soft, haunting sounds of string instruments, emanated from somewhere within the mansion. 

All Mark could think of when he walked in was that it seemed to be a museum – save for the thick layer of incense smoke that had settled on the floor and the intertwined bodies tucked away in each and every available corner. 

The night had barely begun, but hardly anyone was socializing. It seemed most were focusing their attention solely on their pets.

Mark was cold and the silk collar was snug on his neck and the scent of incense was thick in his lungs and all of these sensations felt achingly familiar. This was starting to become _ normal _ for him, he realized, his mouth twisting. His gaze stalled on one particularly enthralled couple. The pair was tucked halfway behind a thick white column with ornate curling decor at the top and bottom, and all he could make out of them was a tangle of bare limbs and hushed murmurs. 

“Man, fuck this place,” he muttered under his breath.

Donghyuck, of course, heard him.

“If things go according to plan, we won’t be here long,” he stated. His voice was amused, as though he’d long grown used to Mark’s bitterness about all things vampiric.

Mark looked to him and just managed to catch the lowering of the corners of his lips, a sign of a smile that was no longer there. Mark’s breath caught, and Donghyuck started to move and the moment was over.

They wound through the darkened, shadowy rooms. Donghyuck took care to introduce he and Mark to what seemed to be the most suspicious vampires in the place. He smiled graciously and bowed low and submissive, then gestured behind him towards Mark. Mark, for his part, wasn’t asked of much beyond complete and utter silence. 

He recalled that the first time Donghyuck had asked this of him, he’d grown quickly irritated. By now, he was able to lose himself. Every time a vampire commented on his appearance, he blanked out and refused to let himself rise to responding. 

Instead, he thought of the takeout leftovers he had sitting for him in his fridge. He smiled blandly and bowed his head as he imagined those noodles, reheated to steaming in the microwave. 

Donghyuck helped. He always defended Mark for some reason. Whenever a vampire snidely commented on Mark’s piercings, tattoos, or even his hair, Donghyuck would issue a blunt “I’m well equipped to handle a pet with a little edge. Perhaps sometime I can enlighten you to his unique charms,” and then steer the conversation to less Mark-oriented territory. 

It was all familiar, until it wasn’t. 

Donghyuck stopped in his tracks at the entrance to a room that appeared on the surface to be no different from the one they’d just left. His face twitched, then curled into an expression Mark hadn’t seen in weeks. When he’d seen it last, he’d been sitting naked with his legs spread on his own motorcycle and the expression had been directed at him. A coy smirk coupled with lowered lids. As Mark stared at him, Donghyuck even cocked his hip. 

“What the fuck are you doing?” Mark asked, somewhat horrified and – if he was being honest with himself – also maybe a little turned on. 

Donghyuck’s smirk faltered for a moment.

“Do you see that vampire in the back corner? – _Mark,” _Donghyuck sounded sorely disappointed, “Don’t be so obvious.”

After rolling his eyes, Mark angled himself better. 

“The one with the scarf?”

Donghyuck’s smirk flickered again. This time, his eyes glinted as though he was struggling to hold back a laugh, “That’s not a scarf. It’s called a cravat – nevermind. Yes. That one.”

Mark turned his gaze back to Donghyuck, his brows furrowed. Their target for the night, he supposed. Donghyuck turned about. The moment his back was to the room, the smirk slid from his face. 

“We walked through a long hallway with doors earlier. I’ll be in the room by the painting of the pond. Bring him to me,” Donghyuck’s tone was brusque. He paused, “Don’t tell him anything other than who will be waiting for him. And make sure he doesn’t bring his pet.”

Mark’s eye twitched as he walked Donghyuck saunter off. 

“Oh, is that all,” he muttered under his breath. He forced his eyes from the swish of the Donghyuck’s coat and back to the room. 

Well, fuck. He wasn’t going to be the reason Donghyuck’s new slaying plan – whatever it was – failed. He ran his hand through his hair. He held his head upright as he walked into the room. He didn’t bother avoiding the scarf vampire’s gaze. Apparently, he’d have to hold a conversation with him. Eye contact was the least of his worries.

“Lee Donghyuck would like to meet with you in private,” were apparently the magic words to secure any vampire’s full attention. In far less time than Mark had anticipated it taking, the scarf vampire was following him as they made their way towards the hallway with the pond painting.

“What does that knave want with me anyways?” the vampire sniffed. 

Mark sighed. He directed his gaze skywards, at whatever forces might be up there, hoping to gain patience from them. Donghyuck… a knave. He really hated these pompous dickheads.

“I don’t know,” Mark gritted out, after levelling out his gaze, “My master doesn’t share all that’s on his mind with me.”

He didn’t even know what Donghyuck was going to have waiting for them behind that door. It could be a trap for the vampire, Mark thought. He wondered if he ought to have stalled the vampire longer to allow for time for him to set the trap up. But, no, Donghyuck would have told him if he’d needed to do that. It was probably a simple trap, then. 

Mark was wondering if he ought to make the scarfed vampire walk first through the door when they turned a corner onto the hallway lined with doors and scenic paintings. 

“Well, you’ve been astonishingly useless,” the vampire continued in his snooty nasal voice. 

Mark splayed his fingers and allowed himself a moment to summon up some self control so as not to snap at the vampire. It was just one moment in front of the shadowed portrait of an unassuming pond, its placid surface covered in lily pads and cattails. He bored holes in the painting with his gaze, futilely trying to glean some of that calm that it so perfectly depicted. After that moment, he exhaled and turned. 

“I’m sorry, sir. You can ask him yourself if you’d like. We’re here.”

The vampire gave him an offended look as though Mark had made some grave misstep in protocol. Mark hesitated, then promptly figured he was better off cutting his losses here. He grasped the door’s handle and walked in.

He only registered the presence of sprawling four-poster bed in the middle of the room. It was too dim to see much else, the only sources of light in the room a few sparsely scattered lamps and one hearth on the bed’s other side. Then, a figure atop the bed shifted and said,

“You’re here at last.”

And, oh.

_ God. _

That was Donghyuck’s drawl. That was Donghyuck on the bed. The golden lamplight flickered off bare planes of skin. Mark’s every thought fizzled out like fingers put to a lit fuse. 

Behind him, he heard the vampire gasp. He had the sudden, irrational urge to turn around and shove the vampire out from the room and to lock the door to prevent him from stepping foot in the room again.

He didn’t deserve to see this. No one but Mark should have been able to see this. 

Mark’s mouth went dry as his eyes traced the sinuous line of Donghyuck’s body. He was reclined on his side, facing the door as though expectant. His lashes were low and his mouth was curled up into the same smirk he’d been wearing earlier. He wore nothing but a pair of black silk shorts. Mark’s silk shorts. A pet’s clothes. 

“What is this? Why are you in – ?“

The vampire cut himself off as Mark spun on his heel. In less time than a heartbeat, Mark had pressed his splayed fingers to the vampire’s chest, backing him up against the door. He didn’t know what to do with the heat coiling low in his stomach, but he knew what to do with the fact that it was so fucking _ annoying _that this asshole vampire was here to see Donghyuck in nothing but pet’s clothes.

“Hey,” Mark said, low, “You’re already getting on my nerves. Don’t push it.”

The vampire laughed, half hysterical. His eyes slid over Mark’s shoulder, drifting back to Donghyuck. More stung than he’d like to admit at his threat being laughed at, Mark pressed his fingers harder to the vampire’s chest to draw his gaze back to Mark. 

“Come on now,” came Donghyuck’s cajoling voice. Mark’s ear perked up, “We were going to let him play with us… right, Master?”

Mark’s limbs went slack. He turned, dumbfounded, to look at Donghyuck.

_ Master? _

“Play with you?” the vampire said. He was focusing on, in Mark’s opinion, the least important part of what Donghyuck had said.

_ Master _… Mark couldn’t think of anything but that. Idly, he wondered if Donghyuck had added fuel to the room’s hearth just before they’d walked in. Perhaps the fire was just now catching, sending the room’s temperature soaring. He felt too warm, all over.

Donghyuck’s gaze was on Mark. When Mark looked at him – really looked, past the superficial smirk and the lowered lashes – he saw that Donghyuck’s eyes were bright. His gaze was active and engaged. He was willing Mark to play along. 

_ Fuck, _ Mark thought.

Because he could play along with this. That wasn’t a problem. He understood, finally, what was going on. But it didn’t settle right with him. Donghyuck’s plan _ had _involved a trap – the difference was that, this time around, he’d made himself the bait. 

“Right,” Mark said, after a beat too long in silent thought. 

He realized after he’d spoken that his voice was sullen, annoyed. He was unable to hide his utter displeasure with this plan. It wasn’t as though the vampire was paying a modicum of attention to him, though. Who would, when Donghyuck was lying ready on a bed in front of them, his bare skin glowing like molten gold.

Donghyuck shifted, moving from his reclined position for the first time, and Mark’s breath caught in his throat. 

“My collar,” Donghyuck spoke softly. 

He touched the tips of the toes of one foot to the cool marble floor, his other leg tucked beneath him. He extended his hand out, his gaze unwavering on Mark. When Mark didn’t move, Donghyuck lifted his hand higher, “Master, please.”

Mark swallowed, hard. The effect of Donghyuck saying that somehow hadn’t lessened the second time around. 

“Forgive me, I don’t understand…”

Mark spared a moment to give the vampire a sharp look before turning around and starting for Donghyuck. The vampire trailed off at Mark’s glance.

Mark recalled Donghyuck retying his collar behind the neighborhood sign. Back then, he’d expressly said it would easier to undo. Mark wrapped his fingers around one of the collar’s loose strands as he crossed the short space between the door and the bed. The faint sounds of piano and violin were barely audible, muffled through the wall. Donghyuck’s gaze followed him, his smirk shrinking with every step Mark made. 

By the time Mark was in front of the bed, the silk collar hanging from his hand, Donghyuck wasn’t smiling at all. His lips were hardly parted and his lashes were low as he cast his gaze down to Mark’s hand.

“My pet and I,” Donghyuck’s voice was small, but Mark could imagine that it carried clear across the room, “We like to do things a little differently.”

His eyes flicked up from the collar, gazing past Mark’s shoulder towards the vampire.

“This isn’t how things are supposed to be,” the vampire’s voice was strangled, pitched high, “This isn’t right.”

Donghyuck’s lip corner curled up.

“To be honest, I don’t really care,” he said, his voice deceptively soft.

With that, he glanced to Mark for the briefest moment before letting his eyes fall back down to the collar. He reached for it but Mark, on impulse, drew it away from him. 

At first, Donghyuck frowned. Then, when Mark reached forward and arranged the collar around his neck, his mouth went slack. Mark cast back to the moment earlier, when Donghyuck had tied his collar for him. Clumsily, he recreated the bow. Donghyuck’s breath was cool on his fingers as he worked. 

He could feel the vampire edging closer but he blocked that from his mind. Later, he’d think about him. Right then, he was tying a collar snug around his own vampire’s neck.

“How’s that feel?” he asked, his voice coming out strange. His hand lingered on the ribbon. For some reason, he was reluctant to let go.

“What?” Donghyuck exhaled. His pupils were fully blown, dark molten pools that reflected the weakly flickering lamplight. Mark felt a ghost of a smile cross his lips. He was too far gone to laugh, though he might have earlier.

“The collar. It’s not too tight, is it?”

Donghyuck’s mouth formed a lowercase ‘o’. He looked so thrown. Mark decided to mess with him, just a little.

“It’s just… you look a little dazed. Maybe you’re not getting enough air.”

His words cost the loss of the expression Donghyuck had been wearing before, his face transforming into overt annoyance. Mark’s heart did a little flip in his chest. He wished he’d held his tongue, almost, just so that he could have seen that look on Donghyuck’s face a while longer. 

Mark was still trying to figure out _ that _strange feeling when Donghyuck slipped off the edge of the bed. He swept forward and pressed his lips to Mark’s with unanticipated reservation, a gentle brush of his lips that managed to send a shiver down Mark’s spine. 

Mark’s hands dropped to Donghyuck’s waist to stabilize the both of them – Donghyuck was listing dangerously off-balance as he pressed closer towards Mark in order to deepen the kiss. Mark’s eyelids fell closed and a sigh slipped from his lips. Each soft shift of Donghyuck’s body against his ignited new sensations and pleasures. 

He hadn’t known Donghyuck could kiss like this. He hadn’t known he’d _ wanted _Donghyuck to kiss him like this, not until he was already being kissed. Mark angled his head, parting his lips and pulling Donghyuck closer still. 

Donghyuck’s thigh slipped between Mark’s own and Donghyuck’s hand trailed tentatively over his back. His fingers alighted over the stake that was tucked into Mark’s waistband before pausing in their path, then falling off and away. Sometime in between when Mark had tugged on Donghyuck’s lower lip until he’d gotten a sigh in response and when he had guided Donghyuck’s hand back to rest on Mark’s waist, Mark realized why this kiss was so different – why Donghyuck was acting so different. 

This was the only way he could conceive of responding to Mark’s words without shattering their already shoddy illusion. He couldn’t talk back and he couldn’t act out. He could only kiss Mark tenderly and steal his breath away. 

Mark exhaled a breathless laugh as he pulled apart, lifting his eyelids with more than a little effort. He slipped his thumb along Donghyuck’s bare arm, tracing down the soft skin of his bicep while he waited for Donghyuck to follow suit and open his eyes.

When he did, his gaze was flickering bright with the reflection of the lamplight. 

“You know, you look a little dazed yourself – “

“You should kiss me like that more often,” Mark cut in, unable to mute his thoughts. 

Donghyuck blinked and Mark tried to clarify, “Even when you don’t have something to prove. It was nice.”

Donghyuck’s brows drew together. 

While he didn’t want to interrupt Donghyuck’s thoughts, Mark had to move things along.

He felt the presence of the other vampire in the room like a weight on his mind, a looming intrusion that kept his shoulders tensed and his grip on Donghyuck’s waist a touch too tight. 

One more kiss before the slaying began couldn’t hurt, though, he thought. Good luck, or whatever. With that in mind, Mark pressed back in. He caught Donghyuck off guard, going by the gasp that Donghyuck let loose past his parted lips. 

This time around, Mark didn’t bother with gentleness. Donghyuck was quick to catch on, matching Mark with his own bruising intensity. With his fangs, the pain was enough to make Mark moan. 

“Ow,” he groaned. 

“I’m sorry, Master,” Donghyuck spoke with saccharine sweetness, murmuring against Mark’s lips before pulling back, nipping at them, “Did that hurt?

“I mean…” Mark panted, in between kisses, “I mean…” he was trying to remember what he’d been about to say. It was next to impossible, what with Donghyuck’s lips shifting against his and Donghyuck’s tongue darting out to trace his bottom lip, “Yes? Yes. That hurt.”

Mark broke the kiss, letting his eyes open. Donghyuck huffed an aggrieved breath and tried to close the gap between them once more, and Mark was forced to raise his hand and lay his thumb against Donghyuck’s lips to hold him in place. 

Donghyuck’s bare chest was pressed to his own and the cut of Mark’s shirt collar was so low as to leave a broad swath of his chest bare as well. Without even a scrap of fabric between them, Mark wondered if Donghyuck could detect how quickly his heart was racing. He felt sure, in that moment, that Donghyuck could. 

He gave himself a moment to catch his breath.

“I don’t know if I’m satisfied with that apology, actually.”

Donghyuck’s eyes opened but only just. His breath puffed against the pad of Mark’s thumb. His eyes flickered, orange and yellow like the surface of the sun. Mark felt as though he’d just willingly taunted a bear. The thought of that alone was enough to bring a smile to his lips.

“How would you have me apologize?” Donghyuck asked. He didn’t sound sarcastic or ironic or annoyed. He just sounded… curious. 

Mark hesitated. He hadn’t thought Donghyuck would react like that, and now he had no ready response. 

“Donghyuck, you’d let your pet dictate your actions? This is completely untoward.”

The fucking vampire. Mark’s hand tightened on Donghyuck’s waist while the other slipped from Donghyuck’s face. He was tensed, readying himself just in case the vampire chose that moment to lash out. 

Donghyuck’s eyes flicked down, then up in the vampire’s direction. He didn’t appear perturbed by the vampire’s response, “You say that, but you still came all the way over here to watch us.”

The vampire sputtered something incomprehensible. Mark turned his gaze with regret from Donghyuck’s calmly arranged features. It was time to turn his focus towards the target. 

“Victor,” Donghyuck said, sweetly.

“...yes?” the other vampire replied. He was standing right by Mark, with every indication that he’d been there awhile. He must have seen and heard everything. Mark felt something rotten and ugly take root in him.

“My master might act possessive but he’s willing to share.”

There was a breathless quiet moment that followed his words. It was expectant, and Mark knew he ought to say something to confirm Donghyuck’s claim. He couldn’t bear it, though. It was as though the ugly thing within him had grown and was blocking his throat, not letting anything escape.

“Is he?” the vampire – Victor – looked for the first time to Mark. He gazed right at him and not through him. Mark could see that there was intrigue in his eyes, and desire. 

_ No. _

Mark only realized his grip had grown too tight on Donghyuck’s waist when Donghyuck let out a single sharp exhalation. Mark relaxed his grip, though he couldn’t bear to pull away, not yet. He left his fingertips to linger on Donghyuck’s waist, grounding points of contact between them. Then, he was able to speak.

“Yes.” 

He didn’t let himself glance towards Donghyuck out of fear that one look would cause his already fragile hold on his ugly emotions to crumble. If Donghyuck could stomach being in the room and flirting with this vampire who’d done unspeakable things to his past pet, then Mark would try his best to keep a hold of himself. 

“He’s all yours, if you want him,” Mark said. He then took a step back, his fingers falling from Donghyuck’s waist. He heard Donghyuck’s breath hitch and, again, he forced his gaze not to stray in his direction. 

Victor’s gaze was directed towards Donghyuck. As Mark watched, he saw his tongue flick out and moisten his lips.

This entire thing made Mark’s skin crawl. If all of this was so wrong, why did Victor look so eager? 

As he stepped away and left room for Victor to move in, Mark reached behind himself. He slipped his hand under the hem of his shirt. There was a soft _ whumph _as Donghyuck fell back onto the bed and Mark couldn’t help but pause and look. 

Donghyuck gazed up at Victor, his eyes alight with something that only an idiot might mistake for lust. If the vampire had known Donghyuck at all, he would have been able to tell that he was angry. He was determined and furious, and he barely had a handle on it. The only thing that was keeping Victor safe was the fact that vampires couldn’t harm other vampires. 

Victor then stepped in front of Hyuck, in between his spread legs. A complete idiot. Mark wrapped his fingers around the stake tucked into his waistband. 

“This really is… quite unusual…” Victor’s voice was breathy, affected. 

“Isn’t it just?” Donghyuck couldn’t even feign sweetness any longer. His voice was frigid, sharpened like a blade as Victor leaned over and reached out.

And Mark knew he ought to wait for Donghyuck’s cue. He knew that was how they did things. And yet, he wasn’t feeling patient. His focus narrowed in on Victor, on the expanse of his stupid frilly shirt. His heart was racing. 

What happened next seemed to take hours, though it couldn’t have spanned more than seconds. Time slowed down, and Mark experienced things as singular, discrete occurrences. 

Mark withdrew the stake. He flipped it from an underhanded grip to an overhanded one. He stepped in. He grabbed Victor’s shoulder and wrenched him around so that they would be face to face. He wasn’t about to stab someone in the back, even if they deserved it. 

Things started tripping along, going faster, speeding up. Victor’s eyes widened, and Donghyuck gasped, “_Mark”. _ Victor’s hands flew up as Mark shoved him down to the bed, angling his push so Victor cleared where Donghyuck was sitting when he landed.

“What – “ Victor said. And then, as Mark lifted his knee onto the bed and hefted the stake high, he followed it up with an “Oh, dear.”

Mark blinked. Black overtook his vision and when he blinked again to clear it from his gaze, the stake was already buried to the hilt in Victor’s chest. Victor’s eyes were glassy, his lips slackened. Mark stayed where he was for longer than he would’ve liked, half straddling the vampire, just trying to catch his breath and keep his heart from beating a mile a minute.

Fuck, Mark thought. 

He slipped his hand off the stake and let it fall to his thigh, the sound of blood in his ears like the in and out of ocean waves.

He flicked a guilty glance towards Donghyuck, readying himself for a comment about being out of line. 

Donghyuck was still reclined. His chest rose and fell with quickness, though to Mark’s knowledge he hadn’t moved an inch throughout that whole sequence. Mark’s eyes traced up, over the rumpled silk collar and back to Donghyuck’s eyes. He didn’t exactly look angry, as Mark had thought he might be. His gaze was intense but, in place of a frown, his lips were parted. The white tips of his fangs were visible.

Mark felt a heated flush rise to his cheeks. If he didn’t know any better, he would have thought Donghyuck looked turned on. 

“Sorry,” he spoke, his mouth suddenly dry, “He was pissing me off.”

Donghyuck blinked in a slow flutter of his lashes. A flicker of a smile crossed his lips. 

“So you just… killed him?”

Mark felt the heat in his cheeks spread down to the back of his neck. He shifted, realizing just how uncomfortable he felt atop Victor’s slack body. He slipped off from him, his boots landing with solid _ clunks _on the marble floor. He cast about for a response to that, any response. 

“Yeah,” he settled on after far too long, “Why wait, right?”

Donghyuck’s eyes remained locked on his. There was something about the heat held within them, something that quenched Mark’s anger from moments before. In its place something sinuous settled, a heated sensation that was coiled tight in Mark’s stomach. 

Mark wanted to look away. This was fucking insane, this whole thing. There wasn’t a part of it that wasn’t completely batshit – feeling this way so soon after slaying. 

Donghyuck looked away first, rolling forward and letting his eyes fall on the vampire’s body.

“I suppose I should thank you. I wasn’t looking forward to letting him kiss me,” Donghyuck’s eyes returned to Mark’s. Humor flickered in them, “Who knows where that mouth’s been?”

Mark smiled back, weak.

“Nowhere good, I bet.”

Things were returning to a place where he felt less on the precipice of something big, something dangerous. He could stand here. It felt like solid ground.

Donghyuck slunk off the bed without so much as a creak of protest from its ancient wooden limbs. He gazed down his nose at the vampire, his hand perched on his hip. He appeared completely unaffected by his lack of clothes, “Well. Let’s move him before his blood gets on the bed sheets then, shall we?”

Though Donghyuck claimed it’d be easy for him to move the body by himself, he also claimed he didn’t want to exert himself more than was absolutely necessary. Mark ended up being the one to grab the vampire underneath his shoulders and haul him towards the balcony doors on the other end of the room.

Donghyuck had made sure to pick a room where they could leave the body behind on a balcony and close the door. Come morning, the sunlight would erase any traces of the body, leaving behind ashes. 

Despite that, Donghyuck assured Mark that even if some vampires stumbled upon the body, it wouldn’t be devastating for them.

“... because, you see, vampires are very selfish.”

“Really?” Mark grunted, pausing in dragging the vampire’s body to shoot Donghyuck a flat look. He could feel sweat starting to bead on his forehead. Who knew the hardest part of all this slaying would be the cleanup afterwards?

Donghyuck didn’t seem to notice Mark’s sarcasm. If he had, he didn’t acknowledge it. He hummed in confirmation, his gaze focused out past the balcony doors that he’d opened and into the distance.

“Yes. They’ll say ‘oh, what a pity’ or ‘shame about Victor’ and then they’ll have a brief moment of gratitude that it wasn’t them and then they’ll carry on with their parties and their pets.”

Mark frowned. He didn’t know why that prickled him with annoyance. He paused at the doorway to the balcony, giving himself a moment to catch his breath. _ Fuck _was Victor heavy. 

He supposed… he just wanted vampires to feel _ something _about the fact that he and Donghyuck were coming for them. He knew vampires didn’t give a shit about anything, not even other vampires. But he wanted them to feel something about their fellow vampires being hunted down and vanishing without a trace.

He wanted them to feel afraid, he decided. Even if it was just a fraction of the fear that the humans they hunted probably felt once they realized they were trapped, once they realized they were at a monster’s mercy.

He didn’t realize he was glaring down at the vampire’s body until Donghyuck spoke, his voice hesitant and careful and completely at odds with anything Mark had ever heard from him before.

“Something on your mind?”

Mark looked up at Donghyuck, his heart thudding in his chest as he saw his carefully blank face, the softness of his features, the soft bow of his lips, the sweep of his lashes. And Donghyuck – Donghyuck wasn’t like that, was he? Donghyuck was a lot of things – inconsiderate at times, selfish in others, and always, _ always _ far too stubborn – but Mark could never call him a monster. 

Donghyuck complicated his once straightforward feelings. Donghyuck complicated everything.

Mark couldn’t quite summon up the same anger he’d felt moments before, not when looking directly at Donghyuck. He gave him a tight smile, then focused his attention back on dealing with the corpse in his hands. 

“No offense,” he huffed out, as he yanked the body out onto the balcony. The moonlit night was cool on the back of his neck. Soft gusts of wind tousled his hair and toyed with the loose hem of his shirt, “but sometimes I miss working on my own.”

Mark missed it, occupied as he was, but Donghyuck tensed. No response came. The distant, muffled sound of the singing of violin strings was the only thing that disturbed the night’s silence. Victor’s heels clunked against the stone floor of the balcony and Mark unceremoniously dropped him. He straightened and surveyed their work.

“Think anyone will come looking for him before sunrise?” Mark asked. He was remembering the demure pet who’d been at Victor’s side and had quickly disappeared into the background at Mark’s mere suggestion that she would be unwelcome.

“No,” Donghyuck replied, after not even a moment’s thought. 

Mark’s gaze gravitated towards him. The sight of him stopped Mark short. Curled in on himself, with his arms crossed over his bare chest, Donghyuck looked small. But there was conviction in his voice, in the glint of his eye. 

His lip twisted as he eyed the vampire’s body with distaste, “I think those who’d notice his absence are probably blessing their good fortunes right now.”

The way Donghyuck was staring at the vampire, the way his shoulders had fallen down as though a weight had been dropped upon them… Mark at once recalled how Donghyuck had snapped the first time they’d slayed a vampire together. He could vividly picture how Donghyuck’s boot had broken through that other vampire’s face. He glanced down to Donghyuck’s bare feet, wondering what thoughts were roiling beneath Donghyuck’s calm exterior.

“...I’ll go get your clothes,” he found himself saying, wanting to give Donghyuck a moment for himself before they’d be on the run again. 

Donghyuck’s gaze lifted to him. He didn’t smile at Mark, not exactly. The moonlight illuminated just enough of him that Mark was able to catch the way his eyes softened.

“Don’t forget my rings and necklaces. They’re worth more than anything you’ve ever owned.” 

“Yes, master,” Mark sighed, fighting a grin. 

“Bedside table,” Donghyuck’s murmur carried through the door, into the room. 

When Mark had picked up every piece of clothing, every overly intricate article that was adorned with laces or buckles or loops, he glanced back. Donghyuck was facing out into the night, his back to Mark. Mark could only imagine what his expression was and what he was thinking.

The not-quite smile remained on Donghyuck’s face all the way from the mansion, all while he uttered flat one-liners about the vampires at the party, salacious rumors and gossip that had Mark’s sides aching with how much he was laughing. It helped that everytime he turned to Donghyuck, his eyes were glinting. It was only when they were back to Mark’s motorcycle that Mark realized that Donghyuck seemed completely at ease, where earlier in the night he’d been so awkward and stiff. Something about watching one of his enemies get killed while wearing nothing but silk shorts and a matching silk collar must have loosened him up.

Mark swung his leg over the body of his motorcycle. He straddled it, resting his arms on the handles and listing forward as he watched Donghyuck buckle his helmet with care. 

Unable to keep his mouth shut, Mark voiced the question on his mind.

“Were you… nervous about tonight?” 

Donghyuck stopped.

“No,” he said, crisply. A grin broke out across Mark’s face.

“Oh my God.”

Donghyuck sighed and turned from him. There was a click from the helmet and then he was walking around towards the back of the motorcycle. Mark rose off from the handlebars to track him.

“You were.” 

Donghyuck shot him a withering look before taking his seat behind Mark. 

“Hey, I feel you. Those tiny shorts… they’re intimidating.”

“I recall that you were paying close attention to me while I was wearing them. Did I seem intimidated to you?” Donghyuck raised a brow, then jutted his chin forward, “Go.”

But Mark wasn’t starting the motorcycle. Not quite yet.

“If you don’t want to risk it again, I’d completely understand,” he shrugged his shoulders, feigning casual, “You know… being the bait didn’t make me nervous.”

Donghyuck’s eyes narrowed. Mark’s heart thudded at just how quickly Donghyuck had been able to see through him and read between the lines of what he said. 

“No.”

“I’m just saying! That plan worked. It was simpler too.”

“Mark,” Donghyuck’s voice was low, hard. There wasn’t any of the levity that it had held before. Mark exhaled. He knew he was pushing his luck but he forged ahead anyways.

“I should be the one getting up close to the vampires. I’m the one who can actually hurt – “

In a flash, Donghyuck had wrapped his arm around Mark and pulled himself flush to him. With Donghyuck’s hand against his chest, Mark choked on his words. 

“Mark, don’t be foolish.” 

His breath, cool, ghosted across the side of Mark’s face. Mark stilled, wary to move with Donghyuck so close. Though it was dark, the moon and starlight illuminated the smallest details of his expression. Like the way his lip corner tugged down minutely and the flash of his eyes as they darted over Mark’s face, searching.

“It goes both ways. Just as you can hurt us…” Donghyuck spread his fingers. The mere increased contact, just that alone, was enough to make Mark gasp out the last of the breath in his lungs, “ … we can hurt you.”

Donghyuck’s hand stayed there a moment longer. Then his hand relaxed and fell from Mark’s chest to his abdomen. He pulled back, not as far back as he’d been during the tense ride to the mansion, but enough that his chest wasn’t pressed to Mark’s back any longer and his eyes weren’t all that Mark could see. 

Mark dragged in a breath of air he hadn’t been aware he was forestalling. Though Donghyuck wasn’t warm, he had been blocking the night gales from reaching Mark. The cold air gusted across his back, rippling his shirt and drawing him from his daze. 

“This isn’t a discussion,” Donghyuck continued, even, “I’ll distract them from now on. You’ll stand back and watch and wait for my signal.”

Mark’s eyes closed momentarily as he suppressed a jolt of annoyance. Why did Donghyuck have to be so difficult? 

“Fine,” he said, sullen, kicking the motorcycle into action, “We’ll do it your way.”

He pulled out from behind the neighborhood sign. Once on the road, he chanced another glance back at Donghyuck.

“For the record, I’m not happy about this.”

He could’ve sworn he heard a smile in Donghyuck’s voice, and he knew for sure he felt Donghyuck’s arm wrap the slightest bit tighter around him as he replied, “Of course you aren’t. I wouldn’t have expected anything different.”

..

As much as Mark hated Donghyuck’s idea, he had to admit that it kinda sorta worked. (Only to himself, of course. He’d never mention it aloud and face being treated with Donghyuck’s smug grin.)

So many vampires, it seemed, were bored with the routine. The subservient pets. The easy dominance. It might have seemed an attractive prospect at the start but, after centuries, it seemed they were all aching for something new. Something to inject some excitement into their life of indulgence and abundance. 

And Donghyuck was offering it to them on a golden platter: a night with a vampire who acted as a pet and a pet who acted as his master.

The second vampire they approached with Donghyuck’s plan was even more reticent to join in than the first. That, or perhaps just watching them together was enough for him to feel a spark of the thrill of transgressing the norm.

The three of them were in an alleyway just outside of a vampire club. It was less than ideal as a location, primarily because of the exposure – any vampire and any pet could walk outside and see them at any moment. A regular person might stumble by them too, though that was less likely, given that Mark had only ever seen vampires and pets in this district at night.

The alleyway also sucked for the fact that it was fucking _ cold, _as well as dark and littered with gravel and trash. It was, overall, not the most ideal place for seduction.

Yet that didn’t seem to matter at all for their target for the night. His deep, uneven breathing was audible even at a distance. Mark could sense him like a presence behind his shoulder, vying for a look as Mark angled in towards Donghyuck.

“Is he just gonna watch? Seriously?” Mark muttered into Donghyuck’s ear. 

Donghyuck’s eyes fluttered, his lips parted. Mark’s train of thought stopped for a moment as he marvelled at how quickly he’d summoned up that reaction. He’d made it look like Mark had just murmured something filthy to him.

“Mmm,” Donghyuck hummed, “Yes. I think so.”

Mark forcibly redirected his thoughts. 

“What an asshole,” Mark hissed, before glancing over his shoulder. The vampire was pressed against the opposite wall of the alleyway, a slack smile on his face, a dazed look in his eyes. 

He looked content to stay there, which was the exact opposite of what they wanted. They wanted to draw him in. They wanted him to take Mark’s place. Then Mark would be free to take advantage of his distraction and slay him. As it was, that didn’t look to be in the cards.

“Fuck it,” Mark growled, seizing Donghyuck’s arm and spinning them. Donghyuck exhaled sharply in shock as Mark reversed their positions, backing up against the cold bricks of the building behind him.

“Don’t do anything rash,” Donghyuck warned, low, his eyes narrowing. 

“Ah, come on. You know me,” Mark’s eyes flicked over his shoulder at the vampire beyond. He looked to be in a state of enthralled shock, his hand clasped over his gaping mouth.

“I do, yes,” Donghyuck sighed. Mark fought the urge to smile. 

“Okay,” he glanced back down at Donghyuck. Then stopped. He swallowed in an attempt to wet his suddenly dry mouth. Donghyuck was so close and Mark’s idea was so _ stupid _ that it just might work. 

“Okay,” he repeated, trying to get a grip on things, trying to speak in so low a voice that the vampire wouldn’t be able to hear it, “I’m going to try something. If it makes you feel uncomfortable – “

“Why on Earth would I feel uncomfortable?” Donghyuck cut in, tone heavy with irony. He shifted in Mark’s grasp, rolling their hips together and knocking the breath from Mark’s lungs. 

Mark almost shot him a look before recalling the vampire would probably see that. He angled in close. His cheek brushed against Donghyuck’s. Donghyuck’s soft skin tickled Mark as he passed, reminding him that he’d forgotten to shave that morning. He drew closer, his lips glancing against the crest of Donghyuck’s ear. Donghyuck had gone completely still against him.

“I’m serious. I feel like you might not go for this. If you don’t – just, like, say a safe word.“

“A… safe word?” Donghyuck repeated, unsure.

Mark had the brief, irrational desire to laugh. Of course vampires walked around with humans in collars and still had no concept of safe words. As it was, he swallowed his laughter, took another look at the vampire across the alley before letting his eyes fall low again. He raised his hand to frame Donghyuck’s jaw, hoping to sell the prolonged moment of conversation as some sort of lovers’ exchange.

“Yeah. Something you can say if you don’t feel right or if I go too far. Something you wouldn’t normally say to me.”

“Oh,” Donghyuck exhaled. As Mark pulled back to look at him, he raised his hand to bracket Mark’s. His touch was as cool as the night air and as soft as breeze through an open window. A corner of his lip ticked up to reveal one pointed fang and he said, “‘You’re doing so well, Mark. Such a perfect little pet.’”

It was just two sentences but, with them, Mark felt like his entire world had shifted on his axis. He blinked, gazing at Donghyuck’s crooked grin, trying to make sense of the words that had just come from his mouth. He was suddenly all too aware that Donghyuck was pressed flush to him, not an inch of space between their bodies.

“No, i–it has to be short,” Mark managed, weak, “One word.”

Donghyuck screwed up his face, thinking. Mark’s heart was still beating too quickly, his blood flowing dangerously southward. He closed his eyes briefly, wondering what he’d done to deserve this.

“Garlic.”

Mark’s eyes snapped open. Donghyuck looked uncertain. Mark realized he was serious this time, completely serious, and he had to bite back another bout of laughter.

“Yeah,” he smiled, “Okay. Garlic.”

Donghyuck shuddered theatrically in Mark’s arms and Mark had to hiss at him to stop. They were being watched, after all. And it was time to put on a show.

He slipped his hand out from underneath Donghyuck’s palm and encircled the base of his neck. He took care to be gentle and not to use a hold that might make him feel anything more than a light pressure, hopefully just enough to look interesting, then moved in. Mark kissed Donghyuck, a now familiar sensation that still never seemed to grow old. His eyes fell closed as he pressed in close and harsh, knocking his teeth against Donghyuck’s fangs. 

He broke apart before long, just as Donghyuck let out a moan. Unfiltered, it carried through the night. It seemed to echo in the alleyway. Mark cracked his eyelids open. Donghyuck’s head was bowed low. Mark wondered what expression he might see on his face if he looked up. He wondered whether Donghyuck felt embarrassed about the moan that had slipped from his lips.

He didn’t have time to wonder, he realized.

He steeled his nerves, his heart thudding against his ribcage, and then he tightened his grip on the junction of Donghyuck’s neck and shoulder.

“Get on your knees,” he said, loud enough that his voice would reach the opposite end of the alleyway.

Donghyuck looked up at him and, out of the corner of his eye, he could see the vampire stiffen. Donghyuck raised his brow but, without making Mark wait a moment, he lowered himself. He knelt on the dirty alleyway, letting his eyes linger right around Mark’s belt buckle for the span of a couple heartbeats before raising his gaze and staring up at Mark.

“Good…” Mark hardly managed. He lifted his hand to brush over Donghyuck’s hair. As his fingers carded through Donghyuck’s hair, Donghyuck’s lips parted. Mark set his jaw, “Good boy.”

His hand threatened to shake as he lifted Donghyuck’s chin with a crooked finger. Mentally, he urged Donghyuck to read between the lines of what he was about to say.

“Take your time,” he said, lowly. He could see the vampire peeling off the opposite wall, could see him take a single tentative step closer to catch Mark’s words, “Take it slow.”

He dropped his finger from Donghyuck’s chin. Donghyuck’s eyes remained on Mark’s, glinting bright and harsh. Hardly any moonlight filtered down to the base of the alleyway, nestled between two hulking buildings. Instead, yellow light from nearby street lamps and amber light from ancient exit signs set his gaze on fire.

Mark hoped he’d gotten what Mark was trying to say. He hoped he came to the correct conclusion on his own at least. Mark straightened, letting his eyelids fall closed for a moment. He tensed upon hearing the rustle of Donghyuck’s clothes as he leaned in. 

When Mark thought of jealousy – sheer, blinding jealousy that was enough to make anyone forget themselves – he thought of the back of a blond head that shook and shimmered as its owner bobbed back and forth. He thought of Donghyuck’s eyes in a dark office and of Donghyuck’s sharp grin. He thought of Donghyuck’s moan, loud enough to be heard across the room, loud enough to shake Mark into movement.

Mark’s eyes opened slowly, as if he was moving in molasses. He felt Donghyuck’s thumb hook the hem of his shirt and lift it. His breath hitched as Donghyuck arched his neck and pressed a lingering, open-mouthed kiss to the newly exposed strip of skin. 

_ Oh. _ So Donghyuck had gotten the message then, he thought faintly as a distant sound of buzzing built in his ears. He supposed Donghyuck had understood that, in order to draw the vampire in, he’d have to take his time. If he did, if he allowed for enough time for the vampire’s jealousy to fill him completely, in that moment he’d forget his reservations. He’d throw aside his preoccupations with the norm, only invested in taking Mark’s place. Mark knew. He’d lived it. 

He could hear as the vampire’s creeping footsteps disturbed the alley detritus, as gravel scraped against cement. Donghyuck lifted the hem of Mark’s shirt higher just as a fresh gust of wind barrelled down the space between buildings. Mark shivered and Donghyuck laid light kisses over the surface of his goosebumped skin. 

Aware of their audience of one, Mark tried his make his movements as discreet as possible. Donghyuck lifted his lips from Mark’s stomach to focus on undoing his belt buckle and Mark slipped his hand behind his back to extricate the stake from the back of his jeans. He held onto the familiar wooden weight like a lifeline. Donghyuck’s fingers made quick work of his belt before popping open the button of his jeans. 

The sound of Mark’s zipper being undone slowed and then stopped, and Donghyuck’s eyes slid up. There was something heated and indiscernible in his gaze and it was then that Mark was hit with two concurrent realizations; that Donghyuck somehow hadn’t figured out that he was already half hard, and that Donghyuck had been expecting him to be wearing underwear. 

Mark’s lips parted – he didn’t know what the fuck he was planning on saying. Sorry, maybe? Or a belated heads up? 

But then Donghyuck leaned forward, his lashes falling low. Instead, what came from Mark’s lips was something that could only be described as a contented sigh. Donghyuck pulled the front of Mark’s jeans aside and placed an open mouthed kiss to the newly uncovered patch of skin. His breath gusted across Mark’s exposed skin and Mark’s head fell back to the wall behind him. 

Mark couldn’t have said whether he was doing it intentionally but, even without putting his lips or his hand on Mark’s dick, Donghyuck had found a way to tease him. His cheek was practically pillowed on Mark’s cock as he angled in to kiss the pale skin above it. 

And then it worsened. Donghyuck’s mouth parted wider to take Mark’s skin in between his teeth and the fine bone of his jaw pressed into the shaft of Mark’s cock. Mark exhaled, the stake slipping through his hand as Donghyuck worried Mark’s skin with his fangs. Donghyuck finished off by nipping at the already sensitive spot, sending another pulse of pleasure down Mark’s already frayed nerves. 

Mark caught the stake before it slipped through his fingers as Donghyuck pulled off from him. Mark only had time to register the sensation of cold air over the newly aching hickey Donghyuck had left on him.Then the vampire – the _ other _vampire, the one Mark had been dangerously close to forgetting existed – gasped. 

Mark’s eyes shot open. From the gasp, he could surmise that the vampire was closer than he’d been when last Mark had checked. Mark realized, with a sinking heart, that he’d intended to be doing more than this. His idea needed him to be doing more than just passively standing there, waiting for Donghyuck’s next move. 

He let his eyes briefly close, cursing himself for being distracted (although he thought, in defense of himself, who could blame him?). Then he opened his eyes just a crack and reached forward with his free hand to grasp Donghyuck’s hair and pull him back from Mark. 

“What was that?” he asked him.

It was hard to speak evenly in the face of Donghyuck’s unwieldy gaze. His hair, a burnished bronze, tumbled out over his brow and but left his eyes completely unobscured. Mark used his hold on Donghyuck’s hair to tilt his face upwards. 

“You bit me,” he said, warming up to it now, “And don’t think I didn’t notice what else you were doing…” Even then, Donghyuck was tantalizingly close to Mark’s dick. His every exhalation ghosted across it, sending Mark’s senses haywire. Mark’s voice felt hoarse as he continued, “I never gave you permission to touch me there.” 

Donghyuck’s expression was unreadable for a moment, then the vampire made a slight choked off sound and Donghyuck’s face turned calculating. 

“Did I upset you, master?”

To the vampire, it probably sounded genuinely concerned. To Mark, Donghyuck sounded like he was barely suppressing an annoyed growl. He wondered what choice words Donghyuck would have for him after they were done that night. That would be a problem for future him, he decided. 

His hand tensed on the shaft of the wooden stake and he let an easy grin spread across his lips. He dropped his hand from Donghyuck’s hair to his cheek before raising his gaze to the vampire. He was standing right there, to the side of them. Mark felt a hollow thrill of victory – his idea had worked, and the vampire seemed to no longer be held back by his inhibitions. Mark shared a glance with the vampire, as if they had anything in common, as if he wasn’t disgusted by the sight of him. 

Mark clicked his tongue, returning his gaze to Donghyuck.

“It’s okay,” he said, with a smile on his face, “I know you weren’t really thinking,” Mark’s hand tensed on Donghyuck’s cheek, “You’re just a needy little pet, huh? So desperate for my cock you couldn’t stop yourself from misbehaving.”

Donghyuck had gone still. He was looking up at Mark, his lips parted. All Mark could detect from him were his shaky exhalations, and those were abruptly drowned out by the vampire’s nearby gasp.

“Oh my,” his thin, reedy voice came, “Oh my. Oh my.”

Mark suppressed the sudden surge of annoyance he felt at the vampire for interrupting them – what was he interrupting, anyways? This was all a performance for the sake of disarming him.

Mark glanced towards the vampire, making sure to grin wide.

“I guess it’d be wrong to let him off the hook that easy, right?”

The vampire nodded, his chin wobbling. In the heat of the moment, he’d forgotten his compunctions against treating Mark as his equal. He seemed to have no problem following Mark’s lead when it came to this.

Mark’s hands were trembling. This time, it wasn’t from fear. He was beginning to be aggravated with how easy it was to make vampires fall in line. They jumped to take advantage of anyone – humans and vampires alike – who seemed to have less power than them. He wondered if Donghyuck could feel him shaking, if he could detect Mark’s annoyance from Mark’s touch alone. He then wondered if Donghyuck’s knees were starting to ache. He’d been on the ground awhile. Hopefully, it’d be over soon. 

“Would you like to teach him a lesson in patience for me?” Mark asked, somehow managing to keep his voice casual. 

A beat. While he waited in those oppressive silent seconds that followed, Mark looked down, unable to resist glancing at Donghyuck. Mark’s heart skipped a beat at what he saw. Donghyuck’s expression was impenetrable, achingly blank. His eyes seemed to have glazed over, composed more of reflections of the night’s lights than not. 

_ Fuck, _ he thought. He’d broken Donghyuck. 

“I suppose it’d only be right…” the vampire spoke and Mark remembered they weren’t alone, “I have experience in these matters, of course.”

Mark tried not to let himself worry about Donghyuck’s state. This was probably all part of a plan, just another ruse he was playing. 

“Do you? Cool.” 

He shifted his grip on the wooden stake, letting the familiar grooves and whorls slide through his palm. He slipped his other hand from Donghyuck’s cheek. It was possible that he let his fingers linger moments too long on the surface of his skin, that he wasn’t quite able to pull away completely at first.

“Be my guest,” Mark said, stepping aside and keeping the stake hidden behind his back. 

The vampire’s attention was wholly focused on the blank-faced Donghyuck. Donghyuck, who wasn’t reacting, who wasn’t moving at all as the vampire squeezed into the space Mark had occupied moments before.

Mark’s heart threatened to beat out of his chest as he watched the vampire step in and Donghyuck didn’t move in response. He didn’t even twitch a muscle. At least, not until that moment precisely. Just then, Donghyuck’s eyes flicked up toward Mark. A tiny, crooked grin ticked up the corner of his mouth. 

Even as he exhaled a sigh of relief, Mark felt like pulling his hair out – so Donghyuck freezing up _had _been an act? They didn’t have time for another one of Donghyuck’s games. 

The vampire was reaching towards Donghyuck and Mark didn’t have time to wait for his signal, especially when he wasn’t sure it’d be coming. 

_ Fuck _, he thought. He slipped the stake into his pocket before haphazardly doing up his jeans. He left his belt hanging loose as he plucked the stake from his pocket again.

His gaze was on Donghyuck and Donghyuck alone as he flung out his hand and pressed the tip of the stake to the vampire’s chest, holding him in place but not piercing through anything but his pompous overcoat. 

The vampire let out a high pitched scream. 

Mark didn’t spare him a glance.

“Donghyuck,” he growled, reaching for Donghyuck’s shirt.

Donghyuck blinked as Mark caught hold of the neck of his shirt.

“Mark,” he looked up at Mark, his smile spreading, “You’re full of surprises. You’re not half bad at that, actually.”

What? Not half bad at _ what? _

Mark spared a second to try and dissect Donghyuck’s words, and that was all the distraction the vampire needed to knock the stake from Mark’s hands to the ground.

“Shit,” Mark had to release Donghyuck’s shirt. He repositioned himself to press his forearm against the vampire’s clavicle and hold him in place. 

He wasn’t strong enough to hold the struggling vampire in place for long. Already, his arm muscles burned with the effort of keeping the vampire pressed to the wall.

“A little help, Donghyuck?” Mark muttered, strained.

“Right. Yes,” Donghyuck’s voice switched up, turning serious in seconds. Out of the corner of his eye Mark saw him rise to his feet, lithe and quick, “How?” 

Mark allowed himself a moment to close his eyes and thank whatever sort of higher power there was for this one lucky break. Meanwhile, the vampire was raving, spewing annoying nonsense about barbaric humans and no-good, traitor vampires. 

“Oh my God, can you please shut up?” Mark muttered, on the off chance it might actually work. 

Just then, the vampire tried to push off the wall again. Mark brought his knee up and knocked him in the groin for his troubles. His face contorted and drained of what little color it had, turning a curious shade of pale green.

“My stake,” Mark directed over his shoulder. Moments later, Donghyuck pressed it into his outstretched hand.

Mark shifted his weight and flipped the stake over in his hand, curling his arm forward to press the tip of the stake between the vampire’s ribs. The wood trembled with the vampire’s quaking, uneven breaths. He looked to be near tears, his eyes watery as he raised his hands in surrender.

Mark resisted the urge to comment. 

“You wanna say something to him, Hyuck?”

“...Hyuck,” Donghyuck repeated, dully. Mark’s lips twitched up for a moment. He was glad to have Donghyuck back. It was a relief he hadn’t broken him too thoroughly. 

“What?” Mark glanced towards Donghyuck, “I think it’s cute.”

Donghyuck gave him an inscrutable look, “I thought I established that I don’t care for your ‘cute’ nicknames.”

“What do you want?” the vampire whimpered. His voice had the effect of a bucket of ice water dumped overhead, thoroughly extinguishing the warm feeling that had been growing within Mark up until he’d spoken, “Money? I can give you money… Pets? I have all kinds of pets. I’ll let you have any of your choosing just _ please _ let me live.”

Donghyuck’s eyes slid towards the vampire. 

“Money?” Donghyuck sounded offended, “You think I’d end a life over something as inconsequential as – .”

Donghyuck cut himself off, his mouth twisting. The vampire wriggled and Mark shoved the stake deeper into the cut of his ribs before realizing that, at this point, the vampire had no control over his movements. He was just trembling.

That was the effect of looking at Donghyuck for you, Mark thought.

A humorless smile curled across Donghyuck’s lips. Any softness he’d had in his gaze when he’d looked up at Mark was gone without a trace. It seemed impossible to even imagine him in a position of vulnerability as he stared the vampire down.

“You were always the dimmest, weren’t you? I doubt you even knew what you were agreeing to when you and the others were discussing my pet’s fate.”

The vampire’s eyes went to Mark, his pupils carving a tremulous path as he continued to shake.

“Not _ him, _you idiot,” Donghyuck sneered, “Does he look like a pet to you?”

The vampire inhaled, presumably to answer Donghyuck’s question. As his lungs inflated, his chest pushed against the tip of the stake. In the end, all he did was let out a deflated whimper.

“Renjun,” Donghyuck’s eyes narrowed. 

It was difficult to look away from him when he was like this. As he watched him, goosebumps bloomed across Mark’s skin for reasons entirely unrelated to the encroaching night chill.

“Remember him?” Donghyuck continued. His voice was cold enough to make anyone warmblooded shiver, “You were willing to kill him because I’d broken a few antiquated rules. Now look at you – treating another vampire as a pet. Your hypocrisy knows no end.”

“Of course I remember him,” the vampire issued, panicked, “he was – he was so lovely. The best pet, so beautiful! Such a shame what happened to him… I never wanted him to die, of course. I actually argued against it – ”

Mark looked to the vampire, galled at the nerve of his answer. Indignant, he growled out a, “You think lying’s going to save your sorry ass?”

“Mark,” Donghyuck’s voice had abruptly shifted. It softened as he spoke Mark’s name, the hard edges smoothed over. Mark glanced to him. Just like that, Donghyuck had his entire attention. Donghyuck’s expression was placid. His eyes were heated, the only indication of the anger beneath the surface. 

“I don’t think I have anything more to say to him,” Donghyuck continued, his eyes on Mark. 

Mark felt the corner of his mouth lift up.

He turned. The vampire couldn’t even get another simpering word in edgewise before Mark had pushed the stake deep into his chest. A soft gurgling sound escaped the vampire’s slack lips. His eyes rolled up into his skull. 

Mark drew the stake out before any of the vampire’s black blood could trickle onto his hand, then looked back to Donghyuck.

He gave himself a bit longer than he strictly needed to catch his breath. He had no interest in gazing anywhere but at Donghyuck. Donghyuck’s eyes flicked up from the vampire and back to Mark. His expression was unexpected. He looked nonplussed, his brow creased in thought. 

Mark hadn’t realized he was waiting for Donghyuck to say something until Donghyuck spoke up and broke the night’s momentary silence. 

“You did so well, Mark,” Donghyuck said, humor in his voice, “Such a perfect little slayer.”

Mark’s cheeks warmed. He had to fight back a smile and, even then, he felt he didn’t completely succeed. 

“Shut up,” he said, without half as much heat as he tried to inject into it.

Mark hesitated, unsure how he wanted to word what was on his mind. 

Stilted, he tried, “And, uh. Sorry about, like, saying that shit about you. I don’t really think that about you. I know you aren’t really – ”

“Desperate for your cock?” Donghyuck finished, light.

They’d only just begun walking from the alleyway into the street beyond and Mark had to stop in his tracks. His head whipped to the side, wondering at Donghyuck’s response. His expression was so unaffected, he could’ve been talking about the weather.

Mark nodded.

“Yeah,” he said, careful, “That.”

Donghyuck looked thoughtful for a moment. Then a corner of his lip lifted into a crooked grin and he turned from Mark, the barest tip of one of his fangs visible in his smile. 

“I wonder… are you still hard?”

Mark blanched. 

“Donghyuck,” Mark sputtered, hurrying to catch up to him, “What – I – no. Slaying that vampire kinda killed the mood for me, you know?”

Donghyuck hummed, a response that was impossible to interpret. Mark felt his already warm cheeks grow more heated. The sensation spread across the surface of his skin like catching fire as he looked at Donghyuck’s small smile.

Desperate for a subject change, Mark cleared his throat and said, “Actually, come to think of it, I think we’re getting pretty good at this slaying thing.”

Donghyuck’s eyes crinkled up into half moons, his cheeks lifting. The sight was nearly heart stopping. 

“Didn’t you drop your stake earlier?”

“No!” Mark protested. He felt faint, for some odd reason. He hesitated, “... he knocked it out of my hands. Besides, that was your fault.”

“_My _ fault? How was it _ my _fault…?”

They argued over nothing all the way to Mark’s motorcycle. Their bickering soon settled, shifting into more or less companionable silence, occasionally interjected with a comment from one of them that left the other laughing (Mark) or not-quite-smiling (Donghyuck). It wasn’t quite back to normal, Mark reflected, as Donghyuck perched with care behind him on the motorcycle. He also wasn’t quite sure what their version of normal was. 

They weren’t kissing when they were alone anymore. They certainly weren’t fucking. 

Before they went out for the night, Donghyuck would waltz into Mark’s apartment with whatever half-baked plan he had schemed up over the course of the previous week. Once the slaying was done, however, Donghyuck acted as though Mark had never extended him an invitation into his apartment. He acted as though he didn’t dare step foot into the space and had taken to asking to be dropped off at a particular nondescript corner without any residential buildings nearby.

Mark wasn’t sure what they were but he couldn’t shake the feeling that they could be more. He knew with just as much conviction Donghyuck felt it too. Though, after their conversation in the bar, he knew why Donghyuck was trying so hard to deny it.

Mark could only hold onto the hope that one of them would eventually get over themselves. Maybe someday soon he’d stop having confusing feelings about his vampire partner. Or maybe, just maybe, Donghyuck might realize that things could be simple with Mark – that the straightforward path was right there, if he wanted to go down it.

As it was, it felt like they were at an unsteady equilibrium. Mark knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that the slightest push in one direction or the other would leave them toppling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> julia helped me so much with this chapter (and the others but especially this one) so thank you julia! ♡


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